BERLIN: A phone call is planned before the G20 summit, which will be held in Brazil in November. There has not been an official request for a conversation yet. In September, the media wrote that Scholz was preparing a peace initiative on Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to contact Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming weeks, Die Zeit newspaper reported, citing government sources.
According to them, Scholz's entourage plans to hold telephone talks on the eve of the G20 summit, which will be held in Brazil in November. The German side has not officially requested a conversation yet. If it takes place, Scholz will be the first of all European leaders, except Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, to contact Putin directly after more than a year and a half.
The last telephone conversation between Stolz and Putin took place in December 2022. Before the start of the military operation in February 2022, Putin and Scholz often talked. The Chancellor tried to convince Moscow to abandon the decision to launch an operation in Ukraine.
As the weekly Die Zeit emphasized, Scholz last talked with Putin in December 2022, also over the phone. US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, and now former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also spoke directly with the Russian president for the last time in 2022.
In June 2024, Scholz said on ARD that he would talk to Putin if there was "something to talk about."
In early September, Scholz called for a second peace conference on Ukraine with Russia's participation, noting that the moment had come when the question of "how to find a way out of the current military situation" should be studied. The Swiss Foreign Ministry, the country where the first peace conference was held, told RBC that they continue to work to involve Russia in the peace process.
The newspaper La Repubblica reported, citing a source in the German government, that the German Chancellor is developing a peace settlement plan modeled on the Minsk agreements. According to the source, this initiative "does not exclude the transfer of part of the Ukrainian territories to Russia." The publication did not disclose other details of the plan. The German Foreign Ministry indirectly denied to RBC the message about the peace plan, which involves territorial concessions from Ukraine.
In order to establish peace, Ukraine demands that Russia withdraw its troops beyond the borders of 1991. Putin put forward other conditions for ending the conflict, including the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, as well as Kiev's refusal to join NATO. In Ukraine, this was considered an ultimatum.
The publication reports that the chairman of the German government may become the first leader from Western countries to contact Putin by phone in the last 18 months. However, only on condition that the planned negotiations take place.
Earlier, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz opposed the permissibility of transferring Taurus missiles to Ukraine, which can reach Moscow. He also noted the importance of finding ways to peacefully resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, pointing out the need to explore all possibilities.
In turn, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock supported the idea of supplies. She clarified that sending weapons to Kiev is her personal decision.
Scholz is rapidly losing ground. Discontent with him among Germans is growing, and his Social Democratic Party, along with its allies, suffered a crushing defeat in the elections to the land parliaments of Thuringia and Saxony. Prior to that, the party performed poorly in the elections to the European Parliament, achieving the lowest result of the SPD for the entire period of elections to this body.
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