“What we need is not a dictated peace, but a just and fair peace that takes into account the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine,” the leader said in an interview on the public channel ARD on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy.
“What he is proposing is ultimately to engrave an imperialist raid into the texts,” criticized the chancellor who is participating this weekend in Switzerland at the major conference on peace in Ukraine which is due to bring together dozens heads of state and government, especially representatives of the “Western bloc”. If China and Russia are indeed the main absentees, Olaf Scholz nevertheless described this meeting as an “important first step”.
“The big questions will not yet be resolved there. But the foundations are laid so that progress can be made on the big issues, perhaps at another conference,” he added. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday set Ukraine’s de facto surrender as a condition for talks. He demanded that kyiv abandon its ambition to join NATO and withdraw its forces from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, claimed by Russia.
Olaf Scholz said Putin’s offer before the summit in Switzerland was also aimed at weakening public support for aid to Ukraine. “Certainly this addresses the domestic politics of different countries,” he said. Vladimir Putin “knows that there are many citizens who want there to be peaceful development. And that is why he wants to erase and conceal the fact that it is he who started a brutal war and who continues it without fail.
