Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2005-2021) in her memoirs “Freedom. Memoirs 1954 – 2021”, he wrote that he considers his decision to not support the accelerated entry of Ukraine into NATO correct. The book will be published in November; Bild published excerpts from it.
At the 2008 NATO summit in Budapest, then-U.S. George Bush proposed joining Ukraine and Georgia to the program for admitting new members to the alliance – the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), but Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozywho was then president of France, opposed it.
According to Merkel, granting Ukraine a MAP would mean an “almost irreversible obligation” to accept the country into the bloc.
“The admission of a new member should increase not only its security, but also the security of NATO itself… I considered it extremely negligent to discuss the status of the MAP for Ukraine and Georgia without taking into account the point of view (of the president of the russian federation Vladimir) Putin“, – she wrote.
Merkel believes that the compromise reached at that time, which deprived Ukraine and Georgia of MAP status, but at the same time preserved the prospect of their membership in the alliance, “was necessary, although, like any compromise, it had its price. “He writes that Putin would interpret the promise to accept both countries into the bloc as a “declaration of war.”
Ukraine has requested accelerated entry into NATO in 2022, a few months after the start of a large-scale military conflict between Moscow and kyiv. Last summer, the bloc’s members at a summit in Vilnius simplified Ukraine’s accession procedure, but did not set a deadline, as the Ukrainian side insisted. The United States and Germany insist that kyiv cannot join NATO while it is fighting Russia. To join, Ukraine needs the consent of all member countries of the bloc.
Russian authorities demand that Ukraine abandon its aspirations to join NATO. In the summer, Putin proposed his conditions for ending hostilities, which, in addition to the clause on the neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status of Ukraine, included the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of the DPR, LPR , Zaporozhye. and Kherson regions. Putin stated that Russia does not want a direct clash with the bloc, but is prepared for any scenario, RBC recalls.
