Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky opposed Scholz’s appeal to the Russian dictator.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation on Friday for the first time in nearly two years. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky opposed Scholz’s appeal to the Russian dictator.
According to Reuters, the conversation between Putin and Scholz lasted about an hour. The German Chancellor became the first leader of a country from Ukraine’s allies since 2022 to speak directly, without intermediaries, to Putin.
Stayed to themselves
The German government confirmed the truth of Putin’s conversation with Scholz. Berlin emphasized that the German Chancellor condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and called on the Russian President to end the war in Ukraine and withdraw his troops from there.
In his conversation with Putin, he also stated Germany’s firm intention to continue to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression. According to him, Berlin will support Ukraine “as long as necessary.” The German Chancellor also called on his interlocutor to negotiate with Kiev to “establish a fair and lasting peace.”
Putin, as reported in the Kremlin, in a conversation with Scholz confirmed that he remains in his previous positions regarding Ukraine and accused Germany of “damaging relations” between the two countries.
According to a Kremlin statement cited by Russian agencies, Putin said the current situation in Ukraine was caused by “long-term aggressive policies of NATO” and that peace negotiations should be conducted “on the basis of new territorial reality,” that is, leaving at least all of the Russian territories occupied by it.
At the same time, Putin claims that Russia has never refused negotiations and is ready to hold them now. In addition, as follows from the Kremlin statement, the Russian president emphasized that Russia is open to cooperation with Germany.
The press secretary of the Russian dictator, Dmitry Peskov, emphasized that the conversation between Putin and Scholz took place at the initiative of Germany.
According to him, “there is no need to talk about the similarity of opinions between Putin and Scholz,” but “dialogue is important.”
New contacts with the dictator
Despite the fact that Olaf Scholz told Putin about his disagreement with the Kremlin’s policies, this interaction between the Western leader and the Kremlin may be a sign that the West is about to increase its contacts with Russian authorities, the New York Times notes.
The conversation between Scholz and Putin took place after Donald Trump won the US presidential election last week.
The telephone conversation between the leaders of Germany and Russia took place at a critical moment for Ukraine – when Kyiv has to resist the Russian offensive for the third winter – in conditions of dilapidated infrastructure of energy, Bloomberg notes.
In addition, against the backdrop of the election of Trump as President of the US, uncertainty about Western aid to Ukraine is growing. Germany is the second largest donor to Ukraine after the United States.
Ukraine’s reaction
Before the talks with the Russian president, Olaf Scholz called the leader of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and announced his intention to talk with Putin.
Reuters, citing a source in the office of the President of Ukraine, reported that Zelensky was against Scholz’s call to Putin. According to the President of Ukraine, the contact between the leader of the West and Putin will reduce the isolation of the latter.
Commenting on the conversation between the leaders of Russia and Germany, Zelensky called Scholz’s call to Putin a Pandora’s box. “Now there might be a different conversation, a different call. And this is exactly what Putin wants for a long time: he needs to weaken his isolation, the isolation of Russia,” said Zelensky.
The President of Ukraine is convinced that Putin “does not want real peace, he wants rest.”
“He just wants to conduct an ordinary negotiation that does not end in anything. He did this for decades. This gave Russia an opportunity not to change anything in its policy, not to do anything in essence, which ultimately led to this war,” Zelensky said.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.