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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticized a call between the German Chancellor and Russian President Vladimir Putin as opening a “Pandora’s box” that will only serve to undermine efforts to isolate the Russian leader.
“This is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation, Russia’s isolation, and to conduct normal negotiations that will lead nowhere,” Zelensky said of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s call.
Friday’s conversation was the first time Scholz spoke with Putin in two years. It comes as the German leader prepares for snap elections and Europe awaits newly-elected US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine.
During the call, Scholz urged Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine and start talks with Kiev that would open the way to a “just and lasting peace,” the German government said, Reuters reported.
The Kremlin said the conversation came at Berlin’s request, and that Putin told Scholz that any deal to end the war in Ukraine must take into account Russian security interests and reflect the “new territorial reality.”
Zelensky and other European officials had warned Scholz about the move, according to sources familiar with the matter who believed it was more for domestic consumption, Reuters reported.
Facing early elections on February 23, Scholz’s Social Democrats are coming under pressure from Russia-friendly populist parties on both sides of the political spectrum who argue the government has not deployed enough diplomacy to end the war, according to Reuters.
“The chancellor urged Russia to be ready to enter into talks with Ukraine with the aim of reaching a just and lasting peace,” a German government spokesman said in a statement, Reuters added.
“He emphasized Germany’s continued determination to support Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression for as long as necessary,” the spokesperson said.
However, Ukraine said phone calls with Putin had no added value on the path to achieving a “just peace” in Ukraine. “This (the call) made it possible for Russia not to change anything in its policy, to essentially do nothing, and this is exactly what led to this war,” Zelensky said in his evening speech.
The call comes the week after Trump was elected the next US president. He has suggested he could end the war quickly, without explaining how, and has repeatedly criticized the extent of Western financial and military aid to Kiev.
“It sends a bad signal, especially after Trump’s election,” a Western diplomat told Reuters, noting that their country had told Berlin it was not a good idea. “My hope is that Scholz can now say to his voters: ‘Look, I did it, and it’s a waste of time, since Putin is not open to anything.’ But of course it is a question about how Russia distorts it.”
The Kremlin said Putin had told Scholz that Russia was willing to look at energy deals if Germany was interested. Germany was heavily dependent on Russian gas before the war, but direct shipments stopped when pipelines under the Baltic Sea were blown up in 2022.
Scholz plans to inform Zelensky, Germany’s allies, partners and the heads of the European Union and NATO about the outcome of Friday’s call, German officials said, according to Reuters. Putin and Scholz agreed to remain in touch, they added.
Ukraine is facing increasingly difficult conditions on the front lines in the east, amid shortages of weapons and personnel as Russian forces make steady advances.
A separate German government official told Reuters that Scholz had told Putin that the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia for combat missions against Ukraine was seen as a serious escalation and expansion of the conflict.
Zelenskiy says North Korea has 11,000 troops in Russia and some have suffered casualties in fighting with Ukrainian forces currently occupying territory in Russia’s southern Kursk region.
Germany has provided Ukraine with a total of 15 billion euros in financial, humanitarian and military support since the start of the large-scale war. This makes the country, after the United States, Kiev’s largest lender, according to Reuters.
The future of US aid to Ukraine is unclear after Trump’s election victory.
Scholz and Putin last spoke in December 2022, 10 months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, sending relations with the West into the deepest freeze since the Cold War, Reuters added.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
