- Vladimir Putin called Gerhard Schröder a suitable European peace mediator.
- Dmitry Peskov claims that Putin did not mention Schröder on the initiative, he only reacted.
- Both the European Union and Ukraine rejected Schröder as a mediator in negotiations with Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not proactively suggest former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as a possible European mediator for peace talks with Russia, but he only answered a journalist’s question. However, he considers Schröder to be a suitable mediator. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this on Thursday, according to the TASS agency. According to him, Russia is ready for dialogue with Europe, but it must first change its approach. TASR informs about it.
“Putin did not actively propose Schröder himself. Journalists, i.e. your colleagues, asked him who he thought would be more suitable. He replied that he thought it would be Schröder,” Peskov said, repeating that it was not Putin’s initiative.
After the recent celebrations for the anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Second World War, the Russian president declared that he would choose the former German chancellor Schröder, who is considered his close friend, as the mediator of the negotiations on the end of the war in Ukraine, out of all the European politicians. The representatives of the EU and Kyiv immediately rejected Putin’s proposal.
Politico magazine wrote this week that as a result of the war in Iran, which is keeping US President Donald Trump’s negotiators busy, Europe came under pressure to appoint its special envoy for peace negotiations on the settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
According to The Financial Times, former German chancellor Angela Merkel, ex-head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi and Finnish president Alexander Stubb are being considered for the position in the EU. According to the newspaper’s unnamed sources, the ministers of foreign affairs of the EU countries should discuss this matter during the meeting in Cyprus next week.
According to Peskov, Russia is ready to negotiate with Europe and considers it positive that the EU has recently started discussing a possible candidate for negotiations. “We believe that dialogue is always better than escalating into full confrontation, which is exactly what the Europeans are currently doing. If this approach in the behavior of Europeans changes in favor of dialogue, we will only welcome it,” added the Kremlin spokesman.
