Words of Truth, Thoughts of Truth
Angela Merkel has said that the Minsk agreements were only signed to give Ukraine time to prepare to fight Russia. On Shabbos 16 Kislev Russian President Vladimir Putin said "Honestly, this was a complete surprise to me. This is disappointing. Frankly speaking, I did not expect to hear this from the former Federal Chancellor because I always thought that the leaders of the Federal Republic of Germany were sincere with us. Of course, they were on Ukraine's side and supported Ukraine, but I still thought they had always been sincerely striving for a settlement on the principles which we had agreed on and which were accepted, including in the Minsk agreements. What you have just said only shows that we did everything right by starting the special military operation. Why? Because it transpired that nobody was going to fulfil these Minsk agreements. The Ukrainian leaders also mentioned this, in the words of former President Poroshenko, who said he signed the agreements but was not going to fulfil them. But I was still hoping that other participants in this process were sincere with us. It appears they were deceiving us as well. The only purpose was to pump arms into Ukraine and get it ready for hostilities. We are seeing this, yes. Apparently, we got our bearings too late, frankly. Perhaps we should have started all this sooner, but we still simply hoped to come to terms under these Minsk peace agreements. What can one say to this? Of course, the issue of trust is at stake. Trust as such is already close to zero, but after such statements, the issue of trust is coming to the fore. How can we negotiate anything? What can we agree upon? Is it possible to come to terms with anyone, and where are the guarantees? This is, of course, a problem.".