The Kremlin called for an international tribunal after former German Chancellor Angela Merkel slipped and said the Minsk agreements were an effective ruse to give Ukraine time to “get stronger” for its next conflict with Russia.

Merkel made the admission during an interview with a German newspaper. She said Ukraine used the ceasefire after the two peace deals as a time to get stronger, “as you can see today.”

“The Ukraine of 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today. As you saw in the battle for Debaltseve in early 2015, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin could easily have overrun them at the time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much then as they do now to help Ukraine,” she said.

Russian news outlet RT noted that Debaltsevo was a brutal conflict that ended after the second Minsk deal was signed in February 2015. 

Merkel said that it was ‘clear to all of us that the conflict was frozen, that the problem had not been solved, but that gave Ukraine valuable time.’”

Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said Merkel’s comments “horrifyingly” reveal that the West uses “forgery as a method of action,” RT reported. She accused the West of employing “machinations, manipulation, and all kinds of distortions of truth, law, and rights imaginable.”

The ruse was well-known among the political elite in the region, even before Merkel’s comments. In 2015, Pyotr Poroshenko, the U.S.-backed stooge who became president of Ukraine after the 2014 US-backed coup, told an audience that the Minsk deal was a ruse to buy time for a military build-up.

TRENDPOST: Earlier this month, as we’ve noted, the former chancellor told Der Spiegel that the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not surprise her because the Minsk agreements had been “eroded.” (See “GERMANY’S MERKEL MAKES IT CLEAR: MINSK AGREEMENT VIOLATED.”)

In 2014, Ukraine and these separatists agreed to the 12-point Minsk Agreement that called for a ceasefire in the region, but both sides violated the deal. In February 2015, the Minsk II Agreement, created by France and Germany, also called for a ceasefire, which Ukraine violated. 

Russia said the deal required Kyiv to allow separatist authorities to form their own central government. Ukraine said it will never allow Moscow to have a de facto veto on foreign policy decisions.

Putin Disappointed

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed dismay after learning about Merkel’s comments and said it was “completely unexpected.”

He said, “What can you say to that?”

He said it was his belief that Germany “treated us with sincerity.”

“As it turns out, nobody intended to fulfill any part of the Minsk agreements,” Putin said. He noted Poroshenko’s comments about the agreements being a ruse, and said he thought the other participants “were at least honest.”

“But no, it turns out they were also lying to us and only wanted to pump Ukraine with weapons and get it prepared for a military conflict. Apparently, we got our bearings too late, to be honest. Maybe we should have started all this earlier, but we just hoped that we would be able to solve it within the framework of the Minsk agreements,” he said.

He said it was disappointing to hear such remarks from Merkel.

“I always hoped that the German leadership was genuine,” he said. “Yes, she was on Ukraine’s side, supporting it. But nevertheless, I genuinely hoped that German leadership expected a settlement based on the principles achieved, among other things, during the Minsk negotiations.”

Putin used Merkel’s comments to justify his invasion. He said it is proof that his invasion was justified. 

Putin said the West is fighting for global domination but acknowledged that Russia will have to make a deal vis-a-vis Ukraine at some point. 

He said he is concerned that countries like Germany and France, which would likely help broker any deals, may not be trustworthy.

“The question of trust arises. And trust of course is almost at zero… But nevertheless, in the final analysis, we have to come to agreements. I have already said many times that we are ready for these agreements,” Putin said in a video message, according to Reuters.

TRENDPOST: Philip Giraldi, the former CIA officer and frequent writer in these pages, has noted how the Washington War Machine has turned the wheels on this war. 

He wrote, “Washington has been trying to deconstruct the former Soviet Union ever since 1991, beginning with President Bill Clinton’s expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe in spite of a pledge not to do so and his unleashing the oligarchs who looted the country’s natural resources under President Boris Yeltsin.”

“The pressure continued under the beatified President Barack Obama, who appointed as Ambassador Michael McFaul, who saw his mission as connecting with dissidents and opposition forces inside Russia, a role incompatible with his promotion of U.S. interests and protecting U.S. persons.

“And then we had the redoubtable President Donald Trump undoing confidence-building agreements with Russia followed by the current disaster that is unfolding before our very eyes.

“One should not ignore the fact that the fighting in Ukraine came about largely because the Biden Administration refused to negotiate seriously regarding the mostly reasonable demands that the Kremlin was making to enhance its own security.”

We have also reported extensively on how Kyiv has been in a bloody conflict for nearly ten years with Russian separatists in the Donbas. (See “ZELENSKY ADMITS TO ‘EIGHT YEARS OF WAR’ IN DONBAS—BUT IGNORED BY PRESSTITUTES AND POLITICIANS.”) 

Ukraine has long accused Russia of providing weapons and troops to these separatists in Donbas, a charge that Russia denied. Moscow, in response, accused Kyiv of committing a “genocide” against the pro-Russian separatists in the region, which Ukraine denied.

Completely absent in the American media reports of the current U.S. stand with Ukraine is the role Washington and Victoria Nuland played in the overthrow of its government in 2014. (See “VICTORIA ‘FUCK THE EU’ NULAND WHO SPEARHEADED OVERTHROW OF DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE IN 2014, STLL IN POWER.”)

A report from 2014 in The Trends Journal laid out the political maneuvers at the time in Ukraine: “Washington’s coup in Ukraine brought not only a threat to the Russian population in Ukraine but also a direct strategic threat to Russia itself.”

Nuland, who speaks Russian and French, boasted that Washington had invested $5 billion in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ukraine, sold the bullshit line that the purpose of NGOs is to “teach democracy.”

The Minsk agreements were, at least ostensibly, intended to bring peace to Donetsk and Lugansk, but Russia always had suspicions. 

Dmitry Peskov, a Putin spokesman, said officials in Moscow kept raising their suspicions but “this was all ignored by the other participants of the negotiation process. This is all precisely the precursor to the special military operation.”