Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel has blamed Poland and the Baltic states for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Merkel, who led the country from 2005 to 2021, made the explosive claim in an interview with Hungarian outlet Partizan. 

She attributed the breakdown in diplomatic relations between Russia and the EU to Poland and the Baltic nations, suggesting it eventually led to the invasion a few months later.

According to her version of events, Poland’s rejection of the Minsk Agreements—key international accords between Russia and the EU—gave Putin the confidence to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

After Donetsk and Luhansk—a pair of Ukrainian areas that separated to form what Russia refers to as its republics—declared independence, representatives from these regions, along with Russia and the OSCE, signed the initial Minsk agreement in September 2014.

This agreement sought to establish a ceasefire between Russia, Ukraine and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). 

Merkel asserted that the first Minsk agreement ‘established peace’ from 2015 to 2021, affording Ukraine, which had suffered defeat by Russia in a 2015 summer counter-offensive aiming to reclaim its territory, a chance to ‘strengthen’ and ‘transform itself’.

The initial agreement didn’t appear to hold any sway with Putin, or his lackeys in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Germany ‘s former Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) has blamed Poland for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

By January 2015, only four months following the first Minsk agreement, Russia and the DPR were locked in intense conflict with Ukrainian forces, despite the Kremlin achieving its goals.

The next month, Minsk II was signed, yet it failed to stop further hostilities. Between 2015 and 2021, Russian forces inflicted over 5,000 casualties among Ukrainian troops despite the ceasefire terms.

But Merkel said that it was only by 2021 that she ‘felt that Putin was no longer taking the Minsk Agreement seriously. 

‘That’s why I wanted a new format where we could speak directly with Putin as the European Union. 

‘Some people didn’t support this. These were primarily the Baltic states, but Poland was also against it’.

She added that these four nations were ‘afraid’ that ‘we wouldn’t have a common policy towards Russia’.

Merkel dismissively added in the interview, which was translated into German and then English: ‘In any case, it didn’t come to fruition. Then I left office, and then Putin’s aggression began.’

It comes after at least five civilians have died after Russia launched drones, missiles and guided aerial bombs at Ukraine overnight into Sunday, in a major attack that officials there said targeted civilian infrastructure.

A view of a burning industrial park where humanitarian goods were stored, after a Russian attack on Lviv, Ukraine on October 5, 2025

Moscow sent more than 50 ballistic missiles and around 500 drones into nine regions across Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday morning.

Four people, including a 15-year-old, died in a combined drone and missile strike on Lviv, according to regional officials and Ukraine’s emergency service.

It was the largest aerial assault on the historic western city and surrounding region since Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24 2022, according to Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the local military administration.

Earlier in the war, Lviv was seen as a haven from the fighting and destruction farther east.

In a Telegram post, Mr Kozytskyi said Russia launched about 140 Shahed drones and 23 ballistic missiles across the region.

At least six more people were injured, according to a statement by Ukraine’s police force.