(MENAFN) According to former German chancellor Angela Merkel, the 2014 ceasefire negotiated by Berlin and Paris in Minsk was an effort to allow Kiev time to bolster its military and was effective in that sense.

Merkel told Zeit magazine that despite its failure, her policy toward Russia and Ukraine was correct during her 16 years in power.

“I thought the initiation of NATO accession for Ukraine and Georgia discussed in 2008 to be wrong,” Merkel claimed, noting that “the countries neither had the necessary prerequisites for this, nor had the consequences of such a decision been fully considered, both with regard to Russia's actions against Georgia and Ukraine and to NATO and its rules of assistance.”

The Minsk agreement, according to her, was "an attempt to give Ukraine time" in September 2014. Following Ukraine's failed attempt to impose force on the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, France and Germany mediated a cease-fire.

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