Olaf Scholz assures that Ukraine is analyzing how peace can be negotiated with Russia | International

Several countries, including Ukraine, are already debating how to open peace negotiations to end the Russian invasion. This was stated this Thursday by the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in an interview in the newspaper Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung. Scholz has not specified which governments are analyzing a future negotiated end to the war, apart from mentioning the Ukrainian authorities, but he has specified that the dialogue on this issue would be carried out discreetly: “There are a series of countries , also Ukraine, who are discussing, at the level of defense advisors, how a peace process could be carried out.”

The Ukrainian press has reacted angrily to the words of the German chancellor. Last February, Scholz’s statements revealing that there are British and French soldiers operating long-range missiles in Ukraine were already a source of controversy. The official position of the Ukrainian Presidency is that there is no direct contact with Russia and that the only formula to achieve peace is the 10-point proposal of its head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky. This proposal indicates that any negotiations are unviable if Moscow does not withdraw its troops from the 25% of Ukraine’s territory that it is illegally occupying.

The position so far of the United States and the European powers, led by Germany and France, is that it is Ukraine that must decide what negotiations and under what conditions can end the conflict. Scholz has stressed that the easiest way to end the war would be for Vladimir Putin to order his army to leave Ukraine, but he has also recalled that in the two years of invasion both sides have been able to negotiate several issues (especially, with mediators international): from the prisoner exchange to security at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. “When the war broke out, Ukraine and Russia negotiated directly,” said the German head of government, referring to Zelensky’s attempts in March 2022 to convince Putin for a ceasefire.

The German Social Democrats (SPD), Scholz’s party, have been issuing messages for weeks to counter growing French belligerence against Russia. The chancellor has been blunt about the idea of ​​the French president, Emmanuel Macron, of sending troops to Ukraine, just as he has also closed the door on supplying long-range missiles to kyiv, unlike Paris and London.

Despite this, German authorities reiterate that they are Ukraine’s second ally in terms of military support, only behind the United States. Rolf Mützenich, head of the SPD parliamentary group, delivered a similar message to Scholz in a speech last week: “Is it time for us not only to talk about how to prosecute the war, but how to freeze the war and then end it?” . Scholz has also emphasized in the Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung that he will do “everything possible to avoid a war between NATO and Russia.” The main Ukrainian newspaper, the Pravda, He has shared Scholz’s reflections on his social networks, accusing him of being a coward with a chicken emoticon.

Macron’s more bellicose position has not only caused unrest in Berlin, but also the Administration of US President Joe Biden has reacted critically to his proposals to allocate troops. The reason for this is that the Democratic Party, that of the president, is trying to reach an agreement from 2023 on an agreement with the Republican Party, more reluctant to support Ukraine, to approve a new military aid package valued at more than 50 billion euros. . Luke Coffey, an analyst at the American Hudson Institute for Security Policy, warned EL PAÍS last week that Macron’s proposals were a disservice to convince Republicans of the need to assist Ukraine: “There are many Republicans concerned that the United States United enter a new eternal war. Ukraine supporters argue that will not be the case because there are no American troops fighting, and Macron is now counterproductively suggesting that NATO troops could be deployed.”

Scholz has also been in the news in recent days for his mediation to stop a Russian nuclear attack against Ukraine at the end of 2022. This was stated by Mützenich on March 25, when he explained that the chancellor asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to tell Putin that under no circumstances should he resort to atomic weapons. Xi intervened with Putin and stopped the threat, according to Mützenich. The newspaper The New York Times reported this March that the Pentagon considered October 2022 as very likely that the Kremlin would contemplate a nuclear attack against kyiv.