Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz is taking an increasingly realistic stance on the prospects of a swift end to the war in Ukraine, stressing that the conflict will conclude only through military or economic exhaustion not through rational or humanitarian appeals.
“This war will end when one of the two sides is exhausted militarily or economically,” Merz said in an interview with the newspapers Neue Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft and Rheinpfalz.
According to the Chancellor, Europe’s goal should be clear: to ensure that the Russian state can no longer sustain the war effort neither militarily nor economically.
Merz also reflected on the Munich Security Conference, describing it as a “seismograph” of U.S.–Europe relations. He noted that the war in Ukraine “has forced Europe to return from a break in world history,” signaling a renewed European responsibility in global security and defense affairs.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who also attended the conference, emphasized that any peace agreement must protect Ukraine, preserve European security, and deter Russia from launching another invasion — without setting a “catastrophic example for the world.”
Macron called it “a major strategic mistake” to push Ukraine into accepting defeat.
