German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he is ready to speak again with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though his recent call yielded no results.
“It was frustrating,” Scholz said on Wednesday in a television station’s end-of-year program, “because he simply repeated all his formulas again.”
Despite criticism of the call from Ukraine and Eastern European countries, Scholz said it was necessary to make it clear to Putin that he could not count on Germany to reduce its support for Ukraine.
Scholz said he urged Putin to “withdraw troops so that the basis for peaceful development can be created.”
About the call, the chancellor said: “And that must be done, and I will do it again. But we should have no illusions about that.”
Scholz called Putin on his own initiative in mid-November, for the first time since December 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Scholz of opening a ‘Pandora’s box’ with the call.
