MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday that Russia was ready to look at energy deals if Berlin was interested, the Kremlin said, in their first phone conversation since December 2022.
It said the two men had a “detailed and frank exchange of views” on Ukraine and that Putin had set out the same position he has been stating for months: any peace deal must address Moscow’s security interests and be based on “new territorial realities” – a reference to the fact that Russian troops control a fifth of the country.
Putin also spoke of an “unprecedented degradation” in relations between the two countries, for which he blamed unfriendly actions by Germany, a Kremlin statement said.
“It was emphasized that Russia has always strictly fulfilled its treaty and contractual obligations in the energy sector and is ready for mutually beneficial cooperation if the German side shows interest in this.”
Germany was heavily reliant on Russian gas before the war, but direct shipments ceased when the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea were blown up in 2022.
Germany and other European Union countries have imposed successive waves of sanctions on Russia over the war and taken steps to wean themselves off their dependence on Russian oil and gas.
On Ukraine, the Kremlin said Putin’s stance was the one that he stated in June, when he said that the war could end if Kyiv gave up its NATO ambitions and handed over the entirety of four regions claimed by Russia. Ukraine rejected those conditions as tantamount to surrender.
“Possible agreements should take into account the interests of the Russian Federation in the field of security, proceed from new territorial realities, and most importantly, eliminate the root causes of the conflict,” the Kremlin said.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
Comments