Struggling with the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was outspoken in a message to Western leaders on Sunday April 3, just hours after witnessing the Boutcha massacre in the northern suburbs of west of kyiv, where a large number of civilian bodies were discovered after the withdrawal of the Russian army.
In his video intervention, Volodymyr Zelensky targeted the former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, today without official function, as well as the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The two former leaders are criticized by the Ukrainian president for their policy towards the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
"I invite Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy to visit Boutcha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has achieved", launched Volodymyr Zelensky, referring to the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in the cities north of the capital - which Western powers have called "war crimes".
>> To read also: "Ukraine: the Boutcha massacre, a modus operandi reminiscent of Chechnya"
“See with your own eyes the tortured and killed Ukrainians,” he added.
Volodymyr Zelensky was speaking on the anniversary of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, where the Atlantic Alliance pledged future membership to Georgia and Ukraine, without however, to provide a precise timetable – a compromise which, according to the Ukrainian president, has left the country in a “grey zone” and exposed it to Russian aggression.
“They thought that by refusing Ukraine, they could appease Russia, convince it to respect Ukraine and live normally with us,” castigated the Ukrainian president, accusing NATO members of acting “ in fear" of the Kremlin.
Collapse of the New World Order
In 2008, Paris and Berlin had considered that it was too early for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, arguing that neither of the two countries was ready and fearing that the accession of the two former Soviet republics to the Atlantic Alliance do not compromise relations with Russia.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who left politics at the end of 2021, said in a short statement released by her spokesperson on Monday that she "assumes her decisions from the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest" while emphasizing its clear position against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
With hindsight, "it is difficult to know whether a plan for Ukraine's accession [to the EU] would have been enough to dissuade Putin", analyzes Laure Delcour, specialist in EU-Russia relations at the Paris-Sorbonne University, interviewed by France 24.
"Joining NATO is a very long process and it is quite possible that Ukraine still has not joined as we speak," she added.
"One can also imagine that Putin would have acted more quickly to thwart Ukraine's membership."
>> To read also: "The accession of Ukraine to the European Union, mirage or real prospect?"
"Acting quickly" is precisely what Vladimir Putin did, just four months after the 2008 Bucharest summit, by sending his tanks to Georgia to support pro-Russian separatists in the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
A process repeated six years later in the Donbass, going even further with the annexation of Crimea.
Each of Vladimir Putin's forays has drawn an ambivalent response from European leaders, alternating between fiery rhetoric and sanctions at first, and attempts at detente soon after.
While Ukraine is today in the throes of a war claiming many civilian victims, these same leaders are accused of having emboldened the Russian president and having turned a blind eye to his imperialist ambitions.
In an interview with France 24, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, vice-president of the German Marshall Fund (GMF), a think tank dedicated to defending and strengthening the transatlantic relationship, says: "Europe has not deceived, it is Germany and France who were deceived."
"France and Germany tend to speak on behalf of Europe. But these errors of judgment were made in Paris and Berlin, not elsewhere. Eastern Europe was not mistaken, Neither does Northern Europe," he adds.
According to Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the war in Ukraine prompted an urgent reconsideration of German and French policies towards Russia: "Not only is the new post-Cold War world order crumbling before our eyes, but the strategies deployed by Germany and France as well," he said.
The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, a "mistake"
Germany's change of posture with regard to Moscow is well and truly under way.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has cast a chill over the legacy left by Angela Merkel after sixteen years at the helm of the country.
"What Germany and Europe have experienced in recent days is nothing but a reversal of Angela Merkel's policy, which was to secure peace and freedom through treaties with despots “, wrote the conservative German daily Die Welt last month, calling the former chancellor’s trade-based diplomatic strategy a “mistake”.
Criticism has also come from some of the former leader's closest aides, such as her former defense minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who condemned Germany's "historic failure" to bolster its military in over the years.
"After Georgia, Crimea and Donbass, we haven't prepared anything that would have really deterred Putin," she said in a tweet.
Germany's reliance on Russian energy, which accounted for 36% of its gas imports when Vladimir Putin seized Crimea, rose to 55% by the time of Russia's invasion of Crimea. 'Ukraine.
Dependence on Russian energy has made it impossible for Berlin to heed the call of the United States and other allies to impose a full energy embargo on Moscow.
>> To read also: "War in Ukraine: towards a renewal of NATO?"
The German head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was foreign minister in two governments of Angela Merkel, also admitted on Monday that he had made a "mistake" by supporting the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
"We were clinging to bridges that Russia no longer believed in and that our partners had warned us against," he said.
The United States and EU members such as Poland had strongly opposed the €10 billion gas pipeline project that bypasses Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of gas transit fees.
After defending it tooth and nail throughout its construction, Berlin finally suspended the project sine die in February.
The Social Democrats now in power have been strong supporters of a rapprochement with Moscow.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier was counting on the fact that "Vladimir Putin would not accept the economic, political and moral ruin of his country for his imperial folly", he explained on Monday.
"Like others, I was wrong," he concluded.
Disillusions
According to Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the war in Ukraine burst the bubble in which Germany had been living since the 1990s. For the vice-president of the German Marshall Fund, Berlin was living in "a post-Cold War world order which offered it the most advantageous international configuration since industrialization, guaranteeing it peace, wealth and the idea that the country could get along with everyone.According to this postulate, Berlin therefore did not need to guarantee its own defense [by developing his army]."
The "end of history" led countries like Germany to "believe that the whole world was on the road to democracy", adds the German intellectual.
"Russia would take time, but eventually fall into line too, that was the idea. It was ultimately just an illusion."
"Germany believed that trade would be a factor of peace, that the interconnection of our economies would prevent us from waging war on each other [...]. We believed that trade with Russia, in particular with what it does better, namely oil and gas, was a strategy for peace. But this strategy failed", analyzes Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff.
For him, France has for its part suffered from a well-established "French ideology of European strategic autonomy" which has led President Emmanuel Macron to an "erroneous assessment of Putin, of who he is and of what he wants. ", as well as a misunderstanding of Europe's position vis-à-vis the United States and Russia.
"We have seen that the defense of Europe is not Europe, it is NATO," he said.
"That's the conclusion of everything we see [in Ukraine]. The solution to our security problem lies in Western unity – not in fantasies of European armies that will never come true."
Franco-Russian relations, between friendship and tensions
Lack of knowledge about the nature of Vladimir Putin and Europe's ability to reason with him led French President Emmanuel Macron to collaborate with Vladimir Putin longer than he should have, believes Thomas Kleine- Brockhoff.
"Attempting to prevent the war by cooperating with the Russians is not to blame. What is to blame is opting for a utopian strategy instead of a more realistic approach to the situation," says the intellectual, adding: "For how long do you multiply telephone calls with mass executioners?"
The problem is not so much the dialogue as the moment and the objective, continues Laure Delcour.
The specialist in relations between the EU and Russia at the University of Paris-Sorbonne notes that "a certain form of dialogue is necessary insofar as Russia will remain both the neighbor of Europe and of the Ukraine – but you have to be clear about the objectives".
While Emmanuel Macron's recent exchanges with Vladimir Putin have focused on preventing war and then trying to end the bloodshed in Ukraine, past attempts at rapprochement with Moscow have sent mixed messages, explains- she.
Emmanuel Macron has never tried so hard to influence a foreign leader as he did with the Russian president.
Since taking office, the French head of state has received his Russian counterpart on several occasions.
In May 2017, he invited Vladimir Putin to a grand reception at the Palace of Versailles, just two weeks after his election.
Two years later, he welcomed her again, this time at Fort Brégançon, the summer residence of French presidents.
"A Russia that turns its back on Europe is not in our interest," Emmanuel Macron said at the time, a year after celebrating France's victory at the FIFA World Cup in a VIP box. in Moscow at the invitation of Vladimir Putin – an event that other Western officials had shunned because of the poisonings of Sergei Skripal [former Russian military intelligence agent then British spy] and his partner in London.
French President Emmanuel Macron (right) received by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin (left) in Moscow on February 7, 2022. © AFP and Sputnik
"The meeting in Brégançon took place a year after the Skripal affair and four years after the annexation of Crimea, and was preceded by very few consultations with the European allies", underlines Laure Delcour.
"In this context, one can legitimately wonder about the wisdom of inviting Vladimir Putin to try to start again on a good basis."
As Europe reflects on the two decades of failure that failed to deter the Kremlin strongman from invading Ukraine, it is important to distinguish the factors that led to Russian anxiety after the Cold War, some of which are understandable, and Vladimir Putin's decision to declare war on his neighbours, adds Laure Delcour.
"We know that the enlargement of NATO had a major impact on perceptions of Moscow, but the real problem is how Russia reacted to this enlargement [...]. We must not confuse causes and consequence. In this case, the problem is the consequence."
Emmanuel Macron and his predecessors are ultimately guilty of clinging to the idea that Vladimir Putin could live with a security architecture that he repeatedly rejected and violated, says Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff.
"We wanted to believe that Russia would become part of the current European and world order [...]. And we chose to ignore the signs that proved the opposite to us", he concludes.
Article translated from English by Soraya Boubaya. The original can be read here.
The summary of the
France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 app
google-play-badge_FR