Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, told Russian state-owned news agency Interfax that Moscow had not received a Berlin proposal for a telephone call between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (right).
“No. “No. There were no proposals. Peskov said that Putin is still open to a dialogue.
The statement was made two days after German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Bärbock stated that Putin would not be willing to speak to Scholz about brokering a peace in Ukraine.
“He refuses peace and sends a signal every day in favor of destruction and war.” He is not even willing to talk to the German Chancellor on the phone anymore,” said the German Foreign Minister.
According to sources in the German newspaper Zeit, Scholz hopes to speak to Putin on the phone for almost two years.
In September, a spokesperson for the German government said that Scholz would speak to Putin “whenever it comes,” but “for the moment, we must wait.” The last phone call between the two leaders took place in December 2022.
The German chancellor was able to meet Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky during his visit to Berlin, on October 11. Scholz took the opportunity to announce the delivery of an aid package worth $660 million, including the IRIS-T system for air defense, to Ukraine.
Berlin will also work with Belgium, Denmark and Norway to provide Ukraine with a $1.5 billion assistance tranche, said the chancellor. Germany, initially a reluctant partner, has now become Ukraine’s second largest military donor behind the U.S.
Scholz, in a media interview early September, urged faster efforts to resolve the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The chancellor said: “I think that now is the time when we need to discuss how we can get out of this situation faster than it appears at the moment.”
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