Former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s comments that Eastern European resistance to her diplomatic overtures toward Moscow preceded Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered strong reactions in Poland and the Baltic states on October 6.

Speaking in an interview with Hungarian media outlet Partizán published on October 4, Merkel recalled that in June 2021, she and French President Emmanuel Macron had sought direct EU talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid rising tensions near Ukraine’s border. 

“In June 2021, I felt that Putin was no longer taking the Minsk agreements seriously,” Merkel said, referring to the peace accords over the Donbas conflict, signed in 2014 and 2015. 

“That’s why I wanted a new format where we, as the European Union, could talk directly with Putin,” Merkel also said.

The proposal, Merkel went on to say, was blocked by Poland and the Baltic states, adding that those nations were “afraid” Europe would lose a unified policy on Russia. 

“In any case, it didn’t happen. Then I left office, and then Putin’s aggression began,” Merkel said.

The interview — which German daily Bild described as “explosive”, claiming Merkel “blamed Poland for Putin’s war” — has stirred Warsaw and the Baltic states even though the former chancellor was not direct.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Merkel’s suggested version of events was misleading. 

“I interpret the former German chancellor’s words as being about as true as the claim that nobody protested against Nord Stream,” Sikorski told a press briefing, referring to the controversial gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

Poland has long said Berlin’s strategy of establishing close ties to Russia via oil and gas deals was a strategic mistake for Europe. Tying the German economy to Russian gas emboldened Moscow to attack Ukraine on the calculation that the European Union would not react.

In 2021, the EU received 45% of its gas from Russia. By 2024, the figure dropped to 19%. The bloc’s dependency on Russian oil dropped from 27% to just 3% in the same period.

Outliers like Hungary and Slovakia continue to rely on Russian imports while being the EU’s most sceptical member states when it comes to the bloc’s efforts to sanction Russia more.

“Suggesting blame for the war because someone didn’t sit down with Russia on time and didn’t bow low enough to Moscow is absurd. It would have been even worse,” Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, Poland’s minister for regional policy and a former ambassador to Russia, told Polsat News.

Across the Baltic region, the reaction was equally sharp. Former Latvian prime minister Krišjānis Kariņš said Germany had failed to grasp Russia’s true intentions. 

“I consistently told [Merkel] that you cannot deal with Putin ‘in good faith’, but she believed that the Baltic states were wrong. I am astonished that after everything that has happened in Ukraine, she still thinks this way,” Kariņš told BNN, a news website.

Poland the Baltic states are among the most ardent supporters of Ukraine against Russia and the most hawkish in terms of hitting Russian economy so that it backs down from its geopolitical ambitions, which, Poles and Balts say, threaten their independence.

The Baltic states were part of the Moscow-controlled Soviet Union until 1991 while Poland was part of the Soviet political bloc known as the Warsaw Pact.

Marek Magierowski, Poland’s former ambassador to the United States, urged restraint in giving in to media’s imposed interpretation of Merkel’s statements. “The former chancellor only says that the Baltics and Poland did not agree to a new EU format of talks with Russia,” he wrote on X. 

“From that statement to the formulation that ‘Poland is co-responsible for Putin’s war’ is quite a long way.” 

Still, like several other critics, Magierowski called Merkel’s overall record “one big disaster for Germany and Europe”.