DISINFO: Merkel and Hollande admitted that the Minsk Agreements were to prepare Ukraine for war
SUMMARY
The Minsk Agreements were not ‘destroyed’ by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Germany’s former chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s former president François Hollande admitted that they signed them to prepare Ukraine for war.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the Minsk agreements, trying to legitimise Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine by claiming that Western countries, in particular France and Germany, are responsible for the war.
This narrative is merged with distorted and manipulative interpretations of 2022 interviews with Angela Merkel and François Hollande. During the interview, Merkel is clear that she had no illusions about the possibility of establishing a lasting peace through the Minsk talks and the only goal was to reach an agreement that would prevent the immediate takeover of all of Ukraine by Russia, which at that time fuelled and participated in armed hostilities in Ukraine. Hollande confirmed Merkel’s point, saying that the Minsk Agreements “stopped the Russian offensive for a while” while the West decided how “to prevent any further Russian attempts”, but as the international context changed after the Trump presidency loosened US-EU links and “the rout in Afghanistan was seen by Putin as a new sign of weakness in the Western camp […] Putin thought that time had worked in his favour and that he could cross the threshold by further invading Ukraine”. At no point did either Merkel or Holland say that they were preparing Ukraine for war, nor that this was the purpose of the Minsk Agreements.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukraine and the West did not intend to observe the Minsk agreements, that the Minsk agreements were signed only to buy time and arm Ukraine for war on Russia, that the West encouraged Kyiv not to implement the Minsk agreements, or that Russia launched a military offensive because Ukraine did not implement the Minsk agreements.