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Gerhard Schröder: A connection to Putin might still be helpful

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SPD former chancellor
Gerhard Schröder: Friendship with Putin can perhaps be helpful

Gerhard Schröder (SPD), Federal Chancellor from 1998 to 2005

© Michael Kappeler / DPA

Former Chancellor Schröder described the Russian attack on Ukraine as a mistake, but he is adamant about his friendship with President Putin. Just why?

The former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) can still imagine that his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin can contribute to ending the war in Ukraine. “We have worked together sensibly for many years. Maybe this can still help to find a negotiated solution, I don’t see any other solution,” said Schröder in an interview with the German Press Agency.

Schröder has been friends with Putin since he was chancellor from 1998 to 2005 and continues to work for the predominantly Russian companies that run the Nord Stream pipelines through the Baltic Sea. Although he described the Russian attack on Ukraine as a “fatal mistake,” he nevertheless did not break away from Putin. The SPD leadership therefore excluded him, but a party expulsion procedure against him failed.

Schröder doesn’t want to forget “positive events” with Putin

When asked why he stuck to his friendship with the Russian president despite tens of thousands of deaths and Russian war crimes in the Ukraine war, Schröder replied in the DPA interview: “The fact is that this is one dimension that is another.” It once seemed as if this personal relationship could be helpful in solving an extremely difficult political problem. “And that’s why I think it would be completely wrong to forget everything that happened between us in politics in the past in terms of positive events. That’s not my style and I don’t do that either.”

Schröder is obviously alluding to his mediation mission in March 2022 shortly after the Russian attack on Ukraine. At that time, according to his own statements, he first met the then Ukrainian parliamentarian and current Defense Minister Rustem Umerov in Istanbul and then traveled to Moscow for talks with Putin. But the initiative failed. Today, Schröder is calling for a new attempt at mediation at government level. “France and Germany would have to take the initiative. It is obvious that the war cannot end with a total defeat for one side or the other.”

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Schröder described speculation that Putin could start a nuclear war or attack a NATO country on the eastern flank as “nonsense.” In order to nip an escalation towards such scenarios in the bud and to prevent the population’s alarm from increasing, serious consideration must be given to a solution to the conflict in addition to support for Ukraine, he emphasized.