Recently former German chancellor Angela Merkel did an interview with Der Spiegel (archive) and soon after she interviewed with Zeit (archive). In both interviews she said words about the Minsk agreements that have been translated into english as something like:
At the time, it brought calm and gave Ukraine, for example, a lot of time, seven years, to develop into what it is today.
I posted my initial take based on English translation by DW on December 8th where I said Merkel implied the Minsk agreement was a tactic to buy time for Ukraine to build up a war machine to hurt Russia and not a serious deal.
In the time since I wrote that China has revealed their interpretation of her words, and it's about as cynical as my initial take. Putin responded to the words with disappointment, and commented on how the trust level is basically zero. Lukashenko also responded. Many other major figures around the world have weighed in, and many of their interpretations of Merkel's words were very cynical and maybe uncharitable.
I recently asked a friend who speaks the language and is closer to the issue what their interpretation was. They read her words more charitably. Basically, in it's full context (she said a lot more!), it's probably a closer reading of her words to say she was trying to make lemonade out of lemons. Alexander Mercouris also reads Angela Merkel's words in this same manner. There are scores and scores of past quotes from Merkel that do seem to suggest she wanted Minsk to work and was disappointed that it didn't. Her more recent comments are basically a type of cope or a type of face-saving, since the deal she came up with (Minsk was her idea) didn't work out. She can't say directly that it was Ukraine who refused to follow the agreement for political reasons.
Given this more recent information I reform my assessment of her words. I do think Angela Merkel wanted peace. Though I still criticize her, Putin, Zelensky, Petro Poroshenko, Obama, Biden, Trump (etc) for not pushing to make the deal happen. If Merkel wanted to spend political capital to get Ukraine to pursue a path of negotiated peace through Minsk, she could have done more than she did, at less cost than the current war cost. The same is true for all of the other leaders I mentioned, and more. They all deserve varying degrees of blame for their active or passive roles in purusing a path of conflict with Russia.