“German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has defended his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin after criticism from Ukraine and the opposition. Source: Scholz on Sunday before leaving for the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, reports “Europeyska Pravda” with reference to ntv and Ukrinform Details: According to Scholz, during the call it was important to make it clear to Putin “that he cannot count on the fact that the support of Ukraine from Germany, Europe and many other countries of the world will decrease.””, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has defended his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin after criticism from Ukraine and the opposition.
Source: Scholz on Sunday before leaving for the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, reports “Evropeyska Pravda” with reference to ntv and Ukrinform
Details: According to Scholz, during the call it was important to make it clear to Putin “that he cannot count on the fact that the support of Ukraine from Germany, Europe and many other countries of the world will decrease.”
However, he acknowledged that Putin’s position on the war has not changed.
Scholz gave another argument in defense of his call to Moscow: he thinks it would be a bad idea if there was a conversation between the president-elect of the United States and the head of the Kremlin and there was no conversation between Putin and the head of government of an important European state.
Direct speech: “We should not have illusions and be naive. Russia and its president started this war, … they are ready to risk resources, including their people, to carry out the plan to conquer Ukraine, take away its sovereignty and democracy. We cannot allow this and We will not allow it. That is why it is important to make it clear today that we will not stop our support. It would be an illusion on the part of Russia to think that Ukraine will not be able to count on our support in the future…
No decision will be made behind Ukraine’s back.”
What preceded: In the afternoon of November 15, it became known that Scholz spoke with the head of the Kremlin for the first time in two years. Then President Volodymyr Zelenskyi called this call “Pandora’s box”. At the same time, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported Scholz.
Jurgen Hardt, a deputy from the main opposition party CDU/CSU, believes that Putin will consider Scholz’s move “as a manifestation of weakness, not strength.”
At the same time, the general secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Matthias Mirsch, defended the chancellor’s decision.