Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she did not support Georgia and Ukraine's NATO membership action plan in 2008 because it could have been harmful.

According to Merkel, if NATO had granted them membership, Russian President Vladimir Putin could have caused "enormous damage in Ukraine." As it did with Georgia which Russia invaded less than six months after this declaration in Bucharest, instigating Europe’s first war in the 21st century. Merkel also cited systemic corruption issues in Ukraine as reasons to block their membership.

"President Zelensky is bravely fighting against corruption, but at the time, Ukraine really was a country governed by oligarchs, and so there you can't just say 'ok tomorrow we'll take them into NATO.

It was not the Ukraine that we know from today. It was a Ukraine that was very, very divided politically.

It was not a stable democracy. And when you accept a country into a NATO — and the Membership Action Plan is the clear precursor to that — you have to know that we are then prepared to really defend such a country if there is an attack," Merkel said.