LGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone on Friday for the first time in almost two years, a German government source told AFP.
“German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin for an hour on Friday,” the source said. This is the first exchange between the two leaders since December 2022.
“A detailed and frank exchange of views on the situation in Ukraine took place,” the Kremlin said. Putin told Scholz that any agreement should reflect “new territorial realities.”
President Putin has not spoken with most Western leaders since 2022, when the EU and the United States imposed massive sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
Many Western leaders – Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, etc. – with the notable exception of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, refuse to speak to the Russian president.
At the beginning of November, Vladimir Putin regretted that Western leaders had “stopped” calling him.
“If one of them wishes to resume contacts, I have always said it and I want to repeat it: we have nothing against that,” he said at the Valdai forum (Russia).
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, Germany has been the largest arms supplier to kyiv after the United States.
This conversation comes in a very difficult context for Ukraine, which is preparing to experience its third winter under fire from Russia, with much of its energy infrastructure damaged or completely destroyed.
With Donald Trump’s American presidential victory, the question arises of the sustainability of American support, which has enabled Ukraine to resist Russian troops since February 2022.
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