Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her gas deals with Russia, stating they were intended to help German firms and maintain peace with Moscow.

The former chancellor made this known in an interview with a journalist.

She believes the war with Ukraine would have started sooner and worse if Kyiv had joined NATO in 2008.

However,Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky disagrees, describing Merkel’s Nato decision as a miscalculation that emboldened Russia.