Angela Merkel: The war with Ukraine would have started earlier if Germany had not blocked Kyiv’s entry into NATO in 2008

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told the BBC the gas deals she made with Russia were intended to help German firms and kept the peace with Moscow․

Merkel noted that the war with Ukraine would have started earlier if she hadn’t blocked Kyiv’s entry into NATO in 2008.

“We would have seen military conflict even earlier. It was completely clear to me that President Putin would not have stood idly by and watched Ukraine join NATO,” she said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, describes Merkel’s NATO decision, backed by then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as a clear “miscalculation” that emboldened Russia.