🟩 MERKEL: YOU CAN ONLY NEGOTIATE WITH PUTIN IF YOU HAVE POWER
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she has been asked for advice on negotiating with Vladimir Putin, though she refused to reveal by whom.
Speaking to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Merkel argued that negotiations with the Russian leader are only effective when conducted by those who possess political authority and legitimacy.
“I know from my own experience that you can negotiate with the president of the Russian Federation only if you have political power,” she said.
The remarks are particularly interesting given the current debate over how and when the war in Ukraine might eventually end.
Merkel was one of the key architects of the Minsk negotiations following Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Whether those agreements bought Ukraine valuable time or merely allowed Russia to prepare for a larger war remains a subject of intense debate to this day.
Perhaps the most noteworthy part of her comments was not about Putin himself, but about Europe.
Merkel argued that Europe should strengthen its defenses while also maintaining direct diplomatic channels with Moscow rather than leaving that responsibility entirely to Washington. She revealed that before leaving office in 2021, she proposed creating a European format for direct engagement with Russia, but the idea failed to gain support.
Her comments reflect a reality many European leaders are increasingly confronting.
Russia is not going anywhere. Neither is Europe.
The challenge is determining how to deter aggression while keeping open the channels that may eventually be needed to end the war.
For Ukraine, however, there is another lesson buried in Merkel’s remarks.
Power matters.
And after more than three years of war, Ukraine’s growing military strength, expanding drone campaign, and increasingly sophisticated defense industry are giving Kyiv something it did not possess in 2014—a far stronger position from which to shape its own future.