Merkel reveals NATO decision to block Ukraine in new memoir

An excerpt from the former Chancellor's book was published on Thursday by the magazine "Die Zeit."

The book is titled "Freiheit" (Freedom). It's a collection of memoirs in which Angela Merkel writes about the crucial NATO summit in 2008, where they discussed granting Ukraine and Georgia candidate status for the Alliance.

She reveals that she blocked these plans because she was already concerned about a military response from Russia at that time.

Merkel expressed her understanding of the Central and Eastern European countries' eagerness to join NATO after the Cold War, as they aspired to align themselves with the Western community. She noted that Russia could not provide these nations with what they sought—freedom, self-determination, and prosperity.

The former Chancellor emphasized that NATO and its member states needed to carefully evaluate the potential impacts of each enlargement phase on the Alliance's security, stability, and operational effectiveness. Welcoming a new member should enhance NATO's security as a whole.

As Merkel highlighted in her memoirs, failing to consider Putin's perspective while addressing the status of the MAP (Membership Action Plan) for Ukraine and Georgia reflected a significant oversight.

In her book, the former Chancellor reflects that it was unrealistic to believe MAP status could shield Ukraine and Georgia from Putin's aggression or that it would serve as a sufficient deterrent to make him passively accept the unfolding events.

Russia will react to Ukraine's accession to NATO in the same way as Finland's recent accession, as Dmytro Kuleba, former head of Ukrainian diplomacy (he served as Foreign Minister of Ukraine from 2020 to September 2024; Andriy Sybiha succeeded him), assessed in a Wednesday interview with the Spanish newspaper "El Mundo."

When Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, (Vladimir) Putin will react exactly as he did with Finland’s accession. He will shout, threaten, and nothing will happen, Kuleba believes.

Finland, along with Sweden, applied to join NATO in May 2022. It became a member of the Alliance at the beginning of April 2023.

According to Kuleba, thinking that Ukraine's accession to NATO will lead to a third world war is a mistake. "It's the opposite: inevitably, it will lead to it if Ukraine is outside NATO," the former minister declared.

He believes that Ukraine's failure will lead to the emigration of millions of citizens, and "the war will reach the European Union and NATO." Kuleba considers that problems in the region, observed, for example, on the Polish-Belarusian border, will then be "a hundred times greater."

Kuleba argued that a Russian victory would signify the destruction of the Ukrainian state and the collapse of Europe as a region of peace and prosperity. However, a Russian defeat would mark the conclusion of its imperial ambitions—not the dissolution of the Russian state itself, but the end of Russia's functioning as an empire.