Russian President Vladimir Putin has put forward former German chancellor Gerhard Schr\u00f6der as a possible European mediator in talks to bring the Ukraine war to an end.<\/p>\n
Addressing an extraordinary press conference following Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on Saturday, Putin said: “Of all European politicians, I would prefer talks with Schr\u00f6der.” The Russian leader also said he thought the war was tending towards an end.<\/p>\n
In response to a question from dpa, Schr\u00f6der’s office said the former chancellor, regarded by many in Germany as disgraced for his continuing links with Putin, would not comment.<\/p>\n
Putin emphasized that a peaceful solution to the long-running conflict was for Ukraine and Russia to find. “But if someone would like to help, we would be grateful,” he said.<\/p>\n
Schr\u00f6der, 82, a centre-left politician who served as German chancellor between 1998 and 2005, has been a controversial figure for years because of his friendship with Putin and his role in Russian energy concerns.<\/p>\n
Writing in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper in January, he described the Russian invasion as contrary to international law but added: “But I’m also against demonizing Russia as the eternal enemy.” Schr\u00f6der also backed restarting imports of Russian energy.<\/p>\n
Schr\u00f6der took up a significant role in Russian energy companies directly after leaving German politics.<\/p>\n
At the press conference, Putin said he was prepared to hold direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but added: “Whoever wants to meet me must come to Moscow.”<\/p>\n
A meeting at another location would have to be preceded by a long-term peace agreement. Zelensky has ruled out travelling to Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian President Vladimir Putin has put forward former German chancellor Gerhard Schr\u00f6der as a possible European mediator in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[37896,240,334,9175,38078,943,328],"class_list":{"0":"post-64792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vladimir-putin","8":"tag-gerhard-schroeder","9":"tag-german-chancellor","10":"tag-putin","11":"tag-russian-energy","12":"tag-schroder","13":"tag-ukraine-war","14":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116549863634045264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}