Germany’s Scholz urges Putin to end Ukraine war during first call in 2 years

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russian President Vladimir Putin in a conversation Friday to “end” his war on Ukraine and to “withdraw troops.”

The conversation, which took place over the phone, lasted for about an hour and constituted the first direct exchange between the two leaders in nearly two years, according to German media reports.

“The Federal Chancellor urged Russia to be prepared to negotiate with Ukraine with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace,” a German government spokesperson said in a statement, adding that Scholz had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy beforehand and was planning to do so again after the call.

Ukraine’s senior leadership was ambivalent, at best, about the call.

“President (Zelenskyy) told (Scholz) that Putin would not say anything new and that talking to him would only help him get out of isolation,” a Ukrainian official close to Zelenskyy, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject, told POLITICO.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was more optimistic.

“I was pleased to receive the information that the chancellor not only unequivocally condemned Russian aggression, but also repeated the Polish position: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he wrote in a post on Facebook.

Scholz has over recent months been pushing for a second conference on peace in Ukraine which would include Russia. An initial peace summit, without participation from the Kremlin, was organized in Switzerland in June.

Moscow’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva on Thursday said that Russia is open to negotiations if initiated by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Reuters reported.

Scholz and Putin agreed to remain in contact, according to a German government official, who added that Scholz “emphasized that the deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia for combat missions against Ukraine is associated with a serious escalation and expansion of the conflict.”

In a speech to parliamentarians on Wednesday, Scholz had lauded his “prudent” Ukraine policy, which, according to him, had helped avoid further escalation of the full-scale conflict which Putin has been waging for years now.

“I emphasize that I think it is right that I have, without change, played my part in ensuring that there has been no escalation,” Scholz said in the Bundestag.

Scholz has long sought to strike an awkward balance on Ukraine, touting the fact that Germany has provided more military aid to Kyiv than any other European country, while also depicting himself as a leader who can prevent the war from spiraling out of control.

Members of his SPD even refer to him as the “peace chancellor.”

Scholz and Putin last spoke in December 2022, nearly a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

Scholz is set to travel to Brazil over the weekend to attend the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday and Tuesday, where he is expected to cross paths with Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who is leading the Russian delegation.

This story has been updated.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct Donald Tusk’s job title.