MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday that Russia is ready to look at bilateral energy deals if Berlin is interested, the Kremlin said, in their first telephone conversation since December 2022.
The Kremlin said the two men had a “detailed and frank exchange of views” on Ukraine and that Putin laid out the same position he has been stating for months: any peace deal must meet Moscow’s security interests and be based in “new territorial realities” — a reference to the fact that Russian troops control a fifth of the country.
Putin also spoke of an “unprecedented degradation” in relations between the two countries, for which he blamed Germany’s hostile actions, according to a Kremlin statement.
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“It was emphasized that Russia has always strictly fulfilled its contractual and treaty obligations in the energy sector and is ready for mutually beneficial cooperation if the German side shows interest in this.”
Germany was heavily dependent on Russian gas before the war, but direct shipments ceased when the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea were blown up in 2022.
Germany and other European Union countries have imposed successive waves of sanctions on Russia over the war and taken steps to wean themselves off dependence on Russian oil and gas.
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On Ukraine, the Kremlin said Putin’s position is the same as he stated in June, when he said the war could end if Kiev gave up its NATO ambitions and handed over the entirety of four regions claimed by Russia. Ukraine rejected these conditions, which it considered tantamount to surrender.
“Possible agreements must take into account the interests of the Russian Federation in the field of security, proceed from new territorial realities and, most importantly, eliminate the fundamental causes of the conflict,” the Kremlin said.
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