The chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, this Sunday, defended the criticized phone call which he had on Friday with the president of Russia, Vladimir Putinthe first in two years, and which the German president has justified given its importance. Although he has also indicated that the Russian president has not changed his position on his war strategy in Ukraine, which is “not good news.”
Shortly after the first information about the call appeared, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky regretted the telephone conversation understanding that this may be the first of many other conversations with other leaders. ““It has opened Pandora’s box,” he said.. “Now there can be other conversations, other calls and this is exactly what Putin wanted for a long time,” said the Ukrainian president.
“It was important”, Scholz countered before the media before flying to Brazil to participate in the G20 summit. “The conversation was quite detailed, but the position of the Russian president has changed little and this is not good news,” he added in statements reported by the German newspaper The world.
The chancellor has insisted that, above all, It is necessary to be “clear” on “the question of principles that Ukraine can trust” in their country and “no decision will be taken without taking their leaders into account.
Scholz has also expressed himself about a possible conversation between Putin and the next president of the United States, Donald Trump by arguing that it would be incoherent if this type of dialogue could not occur with Germany.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have conversations between the American president and the Russian president in the near future and that the head of government of an important European country” like Germany does not hold talks.
Poland, Lithuania and Finland do not see “usefulness” in the call
One of the most forceful international reactions to Scholz’s call was that carried out on Saturday by the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, who called for the call to become “the last gasp” of a failed strategy “to negotiate territories in exchange for peace with a genocidal dictator.”
This Sunday the Polish Prime Minister joined the same opinion, Donald Tusk, who has assured in his X account that “Putin cannot be stopped with phone calls” and that the massive attack carried out last night by Russia – more than 200 projectiles that have incapacitated part of the Ukrainian infrastructure – is a clear example that “telephone diplomacy” is not a substitute to true support for Ukraine.
The Finnish Foreign Minister, Elina Valtonen, has also asked European leaders for restraint if they decide to follow in the Chancellor’s footsteps. “The most important thing is that they understand that this cannot become a competition to attract the attention of the Kremlin,” he stated.
