The German chancellor talked to Vladimir Putin on Friday in the pair’s first telephone call—initiated by Olaf Scholz—in two years. He urged the Russian president to prepare for negotiations with Ukraine “with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace.”
The call was clearly prompted by Scholz’s domestic political woes, but also by the election of Donald Trump, who has long said he could end the conflict within 24 hours. Kremlin officials have described this attitude as “exaggerated,” yet “better” than that held by the outgoing Biden administration, which over the weekend authorised Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
A write-up of the call in The Wall Street Journal suggested that European leaders are warming to the idea of peace talks because an end to the conflict would save them from having to plug any funding gap for Kyiv if the U.S. president-elect does cut off support.
Christian Mölling, a former security expert at the German Council of Foreign Relations, also told The New York Times “the Europeans are worried that Trump could negotiate over their heads” because he is more eager than them to work towards peace. Mölling added that Scholz and others are now more likely to pick up the phone because “they want to make sure they are at the table too.”
But the call, which Scholz notified Trump of last Sunday, has sparked anger in Kyiv. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the conversation had opened “Pandora’s Box” and could prompt other European leaders to step forward, just as Putin has “long sought.”
“It is critical,” Zelensky added, for Putin “to weaken his isolation, as well as Russia’s isolation.”
The Ukrainian leader was clearly not moved by Scholz’s condemnation of “the Russian war of aggression,” nor by his call on Putin “to end it and withdraw troops.”
Scholz also stressed that the deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia for missions against Ukraine was a major escalation. More recent developments are, however, likely to take the top spot so far as talk about escalation is concerned.
