German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that he is ready to resume “when the time comes” contact regarding Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he has not spoken since December, AFP and Agerpres inform.

Vladimir Putin and Olaf Scholz in the KremlinPhoto: EyePress News / Shutterstock / Profimedia

“My last phone call was a long time ago. But I intend to discuss with Putin again when the time comes,” Scholz said in an interview published by the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger daily.

As for the resolution of the conflict, “Russia must understand that it cannot be about consolidating some kind of cold peace that would make the current front line a new border between Russia and Ukraine, this will only legitimize Putin’s criminal expedition,” Olaf Scholz insisted.

“On the contrary, we must achieve a just peace, and the condition for this is the withdrawal of Russian troops” from Ukraine after the start of the invasion in late February 2022, he added.

However, Olaf Scholz refused to say clearly whether this withdrawal should also include Crimea, which was occupied and illegally annexed in 2014. The Chancellor of Germany estimated that it is Ukraine that should determine what exactly it wants.

Scholz unsuccessfully asked Vladimir Putin to withdraw troops from Ukraine

The last time Olaf Scholz and Vladimir Putin spoke by phone was in December 2022 for an hour. Then the head of the German government again unsuccessfully called on the Russian president to withdraw troops from Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin accused the West of conducting “destructive” policies.

Since then, bilateral relations have been at their lowest level.

The war in Ukraine has forced Germany into a painful and dramatic shift in its diplomatic and economic stance after decades of betting in these two areas on rapprochement with Russia.

Before the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow was Germany’s main gas supplier and one of its main oil suppliers.

After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany also decided to invest heavily in its army. In this way, she put an end to the long tradition of pacifism in the country, which was a consequence of the Nazi horrors.

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