Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this was “exactly what Putin wanted” after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s conversation.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke on Friday with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president’s first publicly announced conversation with the sitting head of a major Western power in nearly two years.The Kremlin leader responded that any peace deal should acknowledge Russia’s territorial gains and security demands, including that Kyiv renounces its plans to join NATO.Credit:Ukraine blasted Scholz’s telephone diplomacy with Putin and many of Kyiv’s allies took a dim view of the call.
The move comes at a critical moment for Kyiv, which is bracing for another winter under attack from Russia with large parts of the country’s energy infrastructure damaged or destroyed. Scholz denounced Moscow’s air attacks on civilian infrastructure and called the deployment of North Korean troops a grave escalation in the more than two-and-a-half year war, according to officials in Berlin who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Scholz had discussed a potential call with leaders of the US, UK and France, but the timing wasn’t clear, said an official close to French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron’s efforts to maintain an open line with the Kremlin in the first months of the war fell flat – and angered Kyiv. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, long a vocal opponent of Putin, welcomed the German leader’s criticism of Russia’s war aims after Scholz briefed him on the call.“I was satisfied to hear that he not only condemned the Russian aggression, but he also reiterated the Polish position: ‘Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,’” he said in a post on X.
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