Socialist Olaf Scholz does Putin a great favor by breaking his isolation

On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz revealed that he had made a phone call to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

The Polish president's questions to those calling for Ukraine to give in to Russia
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Scholz calls for Russia to withdraw, but Putin refuses to do so

Via Twitter, Scholz said: "I spoke to President Putin on the phone and called on him to end the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and to withdraw his troops. Russia must show willingness to negotiate with Ukraine - with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace."

According to the Associated Press, German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit gave more details of that conversation, specifically, that it lasted an hour and that the Russian dictator responded that any peace agreement "should recognize Russia's territorial gains and its security demands, including that Kiev renounce joining NATO." In other words, Putin wants to keep part of Ukraine for himself and turn the rest into a Russian protectorate.

Zelensky criticises Scholz's call to Putin

As expected, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not taken the German Chancellor's move well. In a video released yesterday he said: "Chancellor Scholz told me that he is going to call Putin. Olaf's call, in my opinion, is Pandora's box. Now there may be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words. And this is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time: it is crucial for him to weaken his isolation. Russia's isolation. And to engage in negotiations, ordinary negotiations, that will lead to nothing. As he has been doing for decades. This allowed Russia to change nothing in its policy, to do nothing substantial, and ultimately it led to this war. We understand all these challenges now. We know how to act."

Zelensky added: "And we want to warn everyone: there will be no Minsk-3; what we need is real peace." With this statement, Zelensky is referring to the two Minsk agreements signed in 2014 and 2015 between Ukraine and Russia, after Russian troops invaded part of Ukraine in support of pro-Russian separatists. Those agreements only served for Putin to cajole the world into believing that it is possible to reach an understanding with a tyrant who invades a neighboring country because he is obsessed with reviving Russian imperialism.

A big favor from Scholz to the Russian dictator

With this call, Scholz has done Putin a great favour by breaking his isolation and giving him hope of continuing to manipulate the international community and public opinion. Personally, I don't think Scholz would spend an hour asking Putin to leave Ukraine. It takes much less time to transmit this message and receive the Russian dictator's response, even having to wait for the interpreters to translate.

Moreover, what Scholz has done is a common vice of German politics: talking to Russia about Ukraine without Ukraine. This was already done by the socialist Gerhard Schröder and the centrist Angela Merkel, two politicians who did Putin great favors with the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines and with their regrettable policy of closing nuclear power plants, making Germany dependent on Russia for energy.

With Russia there is only one possible negotiation

Scholz, Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and other politicians must understand that Ukraine's demand is very simple and easy to understand: that the Russian invaders leave its territory. It is the same thing that Scholz, Trump and Orbán would demand if their countries were invaded by a foreign force. With an invader who is murdering Ukrainian civilians, who has been torturing and murdering Ukrainian prisoners of war, who has perpetrated massacres of unarmed Ukrainian civilians, and who has kidnapped and deported Ukrainian children (the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Putin for this), the only possible negotiation is with arms.

It is Russia that started this invasion, it is Putin who does not want peace

In the face of the lies that some are spreading, we must remember that it is not Ukraine that wanted war, nor do those of us who support Ukraine want it. This war was started by Russia because Vladimir Putin has insisted on treating Ukraine as if it were a Russian colony. If this war continues, it is exclusively the fault of Russia and its allies, such as Iran, North Korea and communist China, which have been providing military aid to the invading country.

If anyone truly wants peace, they should support Ukraine, because engaging in talks with Russia or proposing talks with Putin's regime only serves to give the invader hopes of gaining benefit from this aggression, which is unacceptable if we want to maintain an international order based on rules, and not on giving in to the whims of thugs like Putin.

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Photo: Der Bundeskanzler.