Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensk (left), followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) in Paris on December 10, 2019.

Angela Merkel’s popularity was at its peak when she stepped down as head of the German government at the end of 2021, after 16 years in office. But his image was quickly damaged by the war in Ukraine and his perceived permissiveness towards Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Merkel, 68, has been off the radar since leaving government on December 8, 2021. A woman who has long been considered the most powerful woman in the world is currently working on a memoir and watching some kind of television series.

When she was at the helm of Europe’s largest economy, she enjoyed widespread support and was known as a staunch defender of Western liberal values.

The offensive in Ukraine, launched on February 24 by the Russian president, has damaged its image, and currently only 23% of Germans want it back in power, according to a poll by the Civey Institute released in late November.

“A year later, the world is on fire. Russia has invaded Ukraine, gas and petrol prices are skyrocketing, and Germany is afraid of winter,” explains journalist Alexander Osang of Der Spiegel magazine and Merkel confidant.

“Angela Merkel has gone from model to culprit, from crisis manager to cause of crises,” he adds.

The Russian embassy is located not far from the state-appointed offices of the former chancellor. Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Berliners have left banners and flowers at the entrance to the diplomatic mission.

– Invitation to visit Bucha –

The first woman to lead Germany is now accused in a new context of pandering to the Russian president and increasing the country’s dependence on fuel from Moscow.

One of the most criticized decisions is to support the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project even after Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.

Faced with criticism, Merkel broke her silence and presented excuses in several interviews with trusted journalists.

For Hedwig Richter, professor of modern history at Bundeswehr University Munich, Merkel’s loss of prestige was “exceptional” and epitomized the political misconceptions of a generation.

“The governments of the last 16 years have found it realistic to put values ​​such as human rights and climate protection at the last place in politics. But now reality is striking back,” he says.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky holds Merkel largely responsible for NATO’s rejection of Ukraine’s 2008 membership bid.

Zelenskiy in April invited the former chancellor to visit Bucha, a city near Kyiv where Russian troops have been accused of committing massacres and atrocities. According to the Ukrainian, the goal was for Merkel to observe “what the policy of concessions to Russia led to.”

The energy crisis triggered by the escalation of sanctions and retaliatory measures after the start of the war also hurt Merkel’s opinion in Germany.

In the public debate, “Merkel is involved in this war and certainly to blame for the lack of gas,” says journalist Nico Fried, who covered Merkel’s four terms for Stern magazine.

“The question is what will be left of Merkel in 16 years if her historical portrait disappears even before it is framed.”

– negligence –

Richter said Merkel’s accomplishments include her refugee policy, which allowed more than a million asylum seekers to enter Germany after the Arab Spring crackdown at the start of the last decade.

However, Merkel made two serious miscalculations, he analyzes.

First, “the inability of the (German) Republic to defend itself. The researcher points to the lack of investment in the defense sector, which suggested dependence on the United States.

And she also points to the lack of importance of the environmental issue, “very related to Russia’s dependence on fossil fuels.”

“The Merkel government has been terribly neglectful of both issues.”

In her latest interviews, Merkel defended her legacy. She said she used the Nord Stream gas pipeline as a bargaining chip to ensure that Putin complies with the 2015 Minsk agreements that were meant to end hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

Merkel also said that last year she promised US President Joe Biden that the pipeline agreement would be canceled in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and her successor Olaf Scholz carried out that threat days before the war broke out.

Osang highlights the irony that “Putin, of all the people she (Merkel) has known so well for so long, with all his tricks and lies,” was the one who damaged her reputation.