The leaders talked by phone for the last time at the beginning of December.
Berlin.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin “at the appropriate time” in hopes of resuming contact after a near-total breakdown in relations following the Ukraine war.
“My last phone call was some time ago,” Scholz told the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper in an interview published Friday. “But I plan to talk to Putin again in due course.”
The leaders talked by phone for the last time at the beginning of December.
During that hour-long call, Scholz urged Putin to withdraw Moscow’s troops from Ukraine, while the Russian leader accused the West of pursuing “destructive” policies.
Since then, tensions have only escalated between Moscow and Berlin, particularly over the Scholz government’s decision in January to allow German-made heavy battle tanks to be sent to Ukraine.
In the interview, Scholz insisted that his goal remains to “actively support Ukraine” but “still to prevent a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.”
“And never act alone, but in close coordination with our friends and allies,” he said.
When asked about the prospect of ending the conflict through negotiations, Scholz said that Putin must understand that the war cannot end by establishing “some kind of cold peace.”
“For example, turning the current front line between Russia and Ukraine into a new “border”, he said.
“It is rather about a just peace, and its precondition is the withdrawal of Russian troops,” he added.
Relations between Russia and Germany have been deeply frozen since Moscow sent its forces into Ukraine in February last year.
The invasion and Moscow’s move to cut gas supplies to Europe hit Germany particularly hard, as the country has come to rely on cheap Russian energy to fuel its economy.
The conflict has prompted Germany to abandon its traditional pacifist stance, with Berlin sending a barrage of weapons to help Kiev fight Moscow.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published from a syndicated feed.)