The hostilities between Kiev and Moscow can’t be resolved on the battlefield, Gerhard Schroeder believes
Speaking to Moscow is the one solution to finish the hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder instructed the press company dpa in an interview revealed on Thursday. His private friendship with President Vladimir Putin might play a task in stopping the bloodshed, Schroeder mentioned.
The previous chancellor and Russian chief are recognized to have shut ties that stretch again to when Schroeder headed the German authorities within the late Nineties. In 2014, Putin attended Schroeder’s celebration in St. Petersburg.
Later, Schroeder joined the boards of administrators of the Russian operator of the Nord Stream gasoline pipeline and vitality big Rosneft. He confronted a backlash over his ties to Moscow after the battle between Russia and Ukraine erupted in February 2022 – and resigned from the Rosneft board in Could of that yr.
Requested about sustaining his friendship with Putin amid the Ukraine battle, the previous chancellor insisted the 2 issues have been solely distinct.
“I believe it might be utterly incorrect to neglect all of the optimistic issues which have occurred between us in politics prior to now,” he instructed the German information company, including that breaking relationships with mates was “not his type.”
Contacts with the Russian management might nonetheless show essential sooner or later peace talks, Schroeder believes.
“We have now labored collectively sensibly for a few years. Maybe that may nonetheless assist to discover a negotiated resolution,” he mentioned, telling dpa that he noticed “no different means” to finish the battle.
“It’s apparent that the warfare can not finish with the full defeat of 1 facet or the opposite,” Schroeder mentioned.
The previous chancellor has repeatedly referred to as for a negotiated resolution to the battle and accused the US of forcing Kiev to reject a peace cope with Moscow. In October 2023, he additionally mentioned that Western Europe had “failed” to grab the chance to push for peace in March 2022.
Schroeder himself traveled to Istanbul and Moscow on a “peace mission” within the spring of 2022 and likewise met Putin in July of the identical yr. His efforts yielded no outcomes at the moment.
In Germany, Schroeder was ostracized by his personal get together, which disadvantaged him of his parliamentary privileges, however failed in an effort to expel him over his ties to Russia. In 2023, he relinquished his honorary citizenship of Hannover earlier than town might strip him of it.
Moscow has repeatedly mentioned it’s prepared for peace talks so long as the scenario on the bottom is taken into consideration. Ukraine has insisted on Russian troops withdrawing from all of the territories it claims as its personal, together with Crimea and the 4 former Ukrainian territories that joined Russian following a sequence of referendums in autumn 2022. Russia has dismissed such calls for as “absurd.”
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