Russia should not count on the freezing of the front line in Ukraine, said the German Chancellor. He stressed that Russia should withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory, but did not specify whether Moscow should also liberate Crimea.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned Moscow against hoping that the war in Ukraine could be frozen along the borders of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. “Russia must understand that there can be no question of concluding a ‘cold peace’ by drawing a ‘border’ between Russia and Ukraine along the current front line. This would legitimize Putin’s war of conquest” , Scholz said in an interview with Kölner. Journal Stadt-Anzeiger, published on Friday 26 May.
“We are talking about a fair world, and the key to such a world is the withdrawal of Russian troops”, declared the Federal Chancellor. At the same time, Scholz left open the question of whether this requirement also applies to Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.
An evasive answer on Crimea
To a question of clarification, the Chancellor only repeated his words: “Withdrawal of the troops. It is not up to us to formulate for Ukraine the agreements that it wants to conclude.” At the same time, Scholz, speaking about the withdrawal of troops, used a grammatically vague formulation, from which it is not clear whether he meant the withdrawal of all Russian troops, or only part of them. they.
Scholz also dodged the question of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin should be ousted. “I don’t attach much importance to such speculation. Ultimately, the governments of Moscow and Kyiv will have to come to an agreement,” he said.
The Chancellor also noted that he had not spoken to Putin on the phone for some time, but intended to speak to him again at the right time.
Source: delfi
