German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of attacking Ukraine for “absolutely absurd” reasons, revealing assurances he had given him before the invasion.

“NATO has never been a threat to Russia,” he said at an open house at the German chancellery, rejecting claims that NATO countries had ignored security guarantees demanded by the Kremlin on December 17 last year.

It will be recalled that among the measures requested by Russia were the withdrawal of NATO troops from Romania and Bulgaria, the cessation of the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance on the eastern flank, and a firm commitment to not admit Ukraine to the alliance.

Olaf Scholz said on Monday that during negotiations with the Russian president before the start of the war on February 24, he assured the head of the Kremlin that Ukraine’s membership in NATO “will not happen in the next 30 years.”

“But Putin does not want to accept liberal open societies in Europe. Putin has “absolutely absurd” ideas,” the German chancellor also said, reporting that the Russian president “explained” to him that, for example, Belarus and Ukraine should not really be separate states.

Scholz did not say whether those discussions took place during his official visit to Moscow on February 15 or during the numerous phone conversations he had with Vladimir Putin before he ordered his troops to attack Ukraine.

The Germans are dissatisfied with the activities of Olaf Scholz

A poll published last week by Germany’s INSA institute shows that a record number of Germans are dissatisfied with the performance of Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic chancellor who took over from Angela Merkel after her Christian Democrats were defeated in parliamentary elections in September 2018. last year.

More than 60% of Germans said they were not satisfied with Scholz’s job, while the percentage of those who were satisfied with the job of the new chancellor was only 25%.

The Scholz government has come under sharp criticism from Ukraine, the United States and NATO partners in Eastern Europe for the slowness with which it suspended the construction permit for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which the German federal government only approved on February 22. two days before the outbreak of the invasion.

German officials have also come under fire for their initial reluctance to exclude Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system, with a Scholz government spokesman saying just a day after the war that the move “will also have a huge impact on German banks”.

Germany subsequently dropped its opposition, and several large Russian banks were excluded from the SWIFT system in early March.

Olaf Scholz has recently spoken out against an EU visa suspension for Russian citizens, saying last week that it was important not to make life difficult for Kremlin opponents to flee Russia.

He previously stated that it was “very difficult for him to understand” such requests. His comments came after Estonia and Finland asked the EU bloc to stop issuing visas to Russian citizens on August 9.

Economic problems of Germany

The wave of discontent with Olaf Scholz’s government also comes in the context of economic problems facing Germany, a situation seriously exacerbated by the Kremlin’s decision to repeatedly restrict the supply of natural gas to Germany.

Several German states and cities have already taken measures to limit energy consumption, and last week Germany’s economy ministry announced new rules. Among the measures taken at the federal level is heating public buildings to a maximum of 19 degrees Celsius to save energy.

Real estate company Vonovia, Germany’s largest landlord, announced back in July that it would lower the temperature in tenants’ homes to 17 degrees at night to limit rising heating bills.

Germany also faced record inflation, with inflation at 7.9% recorded in June, the highest since the country’s reunification after the fall of communism.

While on the brink of recession, Germany’s economy has also been hit by record temperatures in Europe that have caused the worst drought in decades in many European countries, including the country led by Olaf Scholz.

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