Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia wants to resolve the war in Ukraine through negotiations, and a grain deal reached last month could pave the way for that.

Vladimir Putin and Gerhard SchroederPhoto: Volodymyr Rodionov / AFP / Profimedia

“The good news is that the Kremlin wants to reach a negotiated solution,” Schroeder told Stern weekly and RTL/ntv, adding that he met Putin in Moscow last week.

“The first success is the grain deal, maybe it can be slowly extended to the ceasefire,” Schroeder said.

Last month, Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports, and the first ship carrying Ukrainian grain to world markets since Moscow’s invasion five months ago is heading to Lebanon.

Solutions must be found “in the next generation”

Schroeder said that solutions to important issues such as Crimea could be found over time, “perhaps not in 99 years, as in the case of Hong Kong, but in the next generation.”

Putin’s friend said that an alternative to NATO membership for Ukraine could be armed neutrality, like Austria.

However, the future of eastern Ukrainian Donbas, where fierce battles were fought, was more complicated.

“We will have to find a solution based on the Swiss cantonal model,” he said, adding that it remains to be seen whether Putin will return to the pre-war “line of demarcation” under the terms of the ceasefire.

Shredder, ridiculed in Germany

Schröder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, criticized the war in Ukraine but refused to condemn Putin, whom he still considers a close personal friend. Putin’s distancing will not help the situation now, Schroeder said.

Increasingly ridiculed in Germany for his pro-Russian stance, Schroeder was barred from public office.

A supporter of the Nord Stream pipeline, which transports Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea, Schroeder is chairman of the shareholder committee of Nord Stream AG, the operator of the pipeline, which is majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom, according to LinkedIn.

After heavy criticism, Schroeder resigned from the board of Russian state oil company Rosneft in May and turned down a candidacy for a position on the board of Gazprom.

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