Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev confirmed Tuesday that former senior German and Russian officials held a secret meeting in Baku earlier this month to discuss possible ways of ending Russia’s war against Ukraine, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz denied his government’s involvement.
WHAT HAPPENED
Speaking alongside Merz at a joint press conference in Berlin, Aliyev said flight data showed four people arrived in Azerbaijan on July 12: Matthias Platzeck, the former minister-president of Brandenburg; Ronald Pofalla, a former chief of staff to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Viktor Zubkov, a former Russian deputy prime minister who now chairs Gazprom’s board; and Valery Fadeyev, who heads Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. Aliyev said Zubkov departed July 13, while the other three left a day later, and that he had no information on whether the officials had been in contact with one another during their stay. “Our territory was used for such a meeting without our knowledge,” Aliyev said, adding that Azerbaijan received no notification from either Germany or Russia. “If this meeting can help end the war between Russia and Ukraine, we can only welcome it.”
Merz said he had no knowledge of the meeting, telling reporters, “I’m not aware of any such meeting,” while reiterating that ending the war “rests solely with the Russian government and the Russian president” and that Putin “continues to refuse” to enter negotiations despite months of European efforts to persuade him. According to German tabloid Bild, Azerbaijani border services recorded the officials’ entry, and German and British media first reported on the meeting the previous week; those reports described the visiting Germans and Russians as part of a “core group” of emissaries that has held at least four such meetings in Baku and Abu Dhabi since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The disclosure comes as planned trilateral talks involving Ukraine, the United States and Russia remain postponed following the outbreak of the Israel-Iran war, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledging that U.S. attention has shifted toward the Middle East. Zelensky had proposed meeting Putin at the G7 summit in France last month, but Russia “was not ready to speak,” according to Zelensky; Putin has said he sees no point in a meeting with the Ukrainian leader.
WHY IT MATTERS
The disclosure of an unofficial back-channel between former German and Russian officials, conducted without notifying Azerbaijan or apparently the German government itself, suggests informal diplomatic efforts to explore an endgame for the war are continuing even as official trilateral talks remain stalled and Putin has publicly rebuffed direct negotiations with Zelensky. Merz’s denial of government involvement, paired with confirmation that former senior officials with direct ties to past German and Russian leadership took part, raises questions about whether such contacts reflect a genuine diplomatic channel or freelance efforts operating outside formal government sanction. That the reported “core group” has met multiple times in Baku and Abu Dhabi since 2022 indicates a sustained, if opaque, pattern of unofficial contact between Russian and German figures throughout the war, regardless of its practical impact on ending hostilities.
WHAT’S NEXT
Whether the Baku talks produce any tangible shift in the diplomatic landscape will depend on whether informal contacts translate into an opening for the stalled trilateral process involving Ukraine, the U.S. and Russia. Continued statements from German officials distancing the government from the meeting, contrasted with reports of a recurring “core group” of emissaries, will be watched for signs of whether Berlin’s official position shifts. The postponed trilateral talks are expected to remain on hold as U.S. diplomatic attention stays focused on the Israel-Iran conflict, leaving the war’s broader resolution dependent on whether Putin’s stance toward direct negotiations changes.
Originally published on HNGN