The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholzintensifies efforts to defuse the crisis on Ukrainetaking over from the French president Emmanuel Macronwhose diplomatic commitment seems to be giving the first results this Wednesday, since both Kiev and Moscow see positive signs.
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The government of Ukraine said this Wednesday that he sees “real possibilities” of de-escalating the crisis with Russiaafter recent European diplomatic efforts, while the Kremlin said there are positive “signs”.
“Today there are real possibilities of a diplomatic settlement,” declared the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, for whom the situation is “tense, but under control.”
The threats of “unprecedented” sanctions in the event of an attack by Russia, as well as the intense dialogue in recent days, could drive away the specter of war in Europe, according to the Ukrainian government.
“There have been positive signs that a solution for Ukraine could be based only on abiding by the Minsk agreements,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskovreferring to the agreements signed in 2015 after Russia joined Crimea.
However, Peskov qualified by pointing out that there was no indication by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky that “you are willing to solve it quickly”. Russia, which received a visit from Macron on Monday, is preparing for another two-day visit by the head of British diplomacy, Liz Truss.
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The shadow of the pipeline
In this context, Scholz is becoming more and more involved, in response to criticism in recent weeks for his discretion and alleged complacency with Moscow.
After receiving the head of the Danish government, Mette Frederiksen, on Wednesday afternoon, the German chancellor will meet on Thursday with the leaders of the Baltic countries, Russia’s neighbors.
Despite the announcement of the dispatch of 350 additional German soldiers to Lithuania as part of a NATO mission, Berlin’s reluctance to allow Estonia to deliver German weapons to Kiev has created tensions in recent weeks.
After his visit to Washington on Monday to reassure Americans about the reliability of Germanyand after the meeting in Berlin on Tuesday with the presidents of France and PolandScholz walks a tightrope between the expectations of his Western partners and Germany’s dependence on Russian gas.
The highlight of this diplomatic activity is Scholz’s long-awaited visit to Putin on February 15, his first since his election to the foreign ministry in early December.
The shadow of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which links Russia and Germany and still pending certification, continues to hang over relations between the two countries. The German chancellor assured a group of US senators that the pipeline would not go ahead if Russia invades Ukraine, according to Republican chief Mitch McConnell.
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Scholz, whose Social Democratic Party supports this pharaonic work and whose mentor, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, is on the list of candidates for the board of directors of the Russian gas giant Gazprom, was not so explicit in the press conference with US President Joe Biden. He limited himself to saying that Washington and Berlin would take “the same measures” in the event of a Russian invasion.
Late involvement
Macron, whose country currently chairs the European Union, assured that he obtained a “double commitment” from the governments of Ukraine and Russia to respect those agreements, and indicated that he believed in “concrete practical solutions” to achieve a de-escalation.
However, the unknown remains about the true intentions of Putin, who said nothing on Monday about the Russian troops deployed on the border with Ukraine.
The dialogue has not been broken off, but the goal set on Tuesday by Germany, Poland and France of avoiding a war in Europe is far from being achieved and the task seems arduous for Scholz, who got involved in the crisis too “late” while his country holds the presidency of the G7, criticized the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday.
AFP
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