Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholzand the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, held their first telephone conversation on Friday in almost two years. The head of the German government has appealed to Moscow’s willingness to “negotiate” with Kiev “a just and lasting peace.”
Scholz has condemned the “war of aggression” initiated by Moscow’s own Putin in February 2022 and has directly claimed to his interlocutor to put an end to the offensive and to withdraw the troopsaccording to a brief communiqué from the German government.
The chancellor has taken the opportunity to underline Germany’s “unwavering” determination to continue to support Ukraine “as long as necessary”.. Thus, it implies that it will continue to provide both political and military assistance despite the tensions that have arisen in Berlin in recent months.
For its part, the Kremlin, which has stressed in its speech that the initiative came from the head of the German government, said that it was a “frank” and “detailed” conversation, in which Putin reiterated some of the positions he has been defending for the past few yearssuch as that the current “crisis” derives from the “aggressive” policy of the NATO and of the associated risks to Russia’s national security.
Putin argues that he has “never refused” to negotiatealthough it has reiterated conditions that Kiev has always pointed out as unacceptable. Thus, it has called to “take into account the interests of the Russian Federation in the field of security” and to assess the “new territorial realities”, in a veiled allusion to the sovereignty that Moscow now claims to have over regions in eastern Russia. Ukraine.
The president also deplored the “unprecedented degradation” of bilateral relations. between Russia and Germanyreferring to the shelved cooperation in the field of energy. Putin has expressed his readiness to resume it “if the German side shows interest”.
The call, which comes in the midst of moves to reconfigure the European role in the face of the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House, has been preceded by a contact between Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski. The government has also advanced that the chancellor would speak a second time with Zelenski after talking to Putin.
In addition, Scholz has extended this network beyond the leaders of Ukraine and Russia. The Prime Minister of PolandDonald Tusk, has confirmed on social networks that the German Chancellor has called him to inform him of their latest contacts and he was “satisfied” with the German position.insofar as it implied a condemnation of the invasion and took into account the premise “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”.