Scholz promised to call Putin when the time comes

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz intends to resume personal contact with the Russian president. Phone calls stopped last year due to a lack of results.

This was reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing Scholz's statement to Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.

"It has been some time since my last phone call. But I intend to talk to Putin again in due course," Scholz said.

According to him, a prerequisite for a "just peace" is the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. However, Russia must understand that we cannot talk about some kind of "cold peace," "in which, for example, the current front line becomes a new 'border' between Russia and Ukraine. This would only legitimize Putin's plunder."

The chancellor left open the question of whether this also applies to Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014. When asked if his condition also applied to the peninsula, he only repeated his statement: "Withdrawal of troops. It's not our business to formulate what kind of agreements Ukraine wants to reach”.

Scholz also dodged the question of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin should be overthrown. "I don't believe in such speculative questions. After all, there should be an agreement between the governments of Moscow and Kyiv," the chancellor said.

It should be noted that in the first six months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the West repeatedly tried to negotiate with Kremlin head Vladimir Putin. First of all, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron called him. However, the phone calls were mostly unsuccessful.

Author – Anastasiya Glotova, 26/05/2023