“My sticking to Nord Stream 2 was an obvious mistake,” Steinmeier said Monday of the new Baltic Sea gas pipeline that is unlikely to be commissioned. He spoke of a bitter balance. “We have failed to build a common European home, including Russia. We have failed to push to bind Russia into a common security architecture.”
Steinmeier has been criticized in recent days for not speaking out about the misjudgments during his time as German foreign minister (2005-2009 and 2013-2017). Responsibility for the war in Ukraine, however, rests entirely with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. “We shouldn’t bring them to us. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to think about what we’ve done wrong ourselves.”
Steinmeier said he believed that Putin would never risk the complete economic, political and moral ruin of his country for his imperial delusions. “I was, like others, terribly mistaken about that.” The German president emphasized that for a Russia under Putin there can no longer be talk of a “return to the situation before the war”.