Zelensky says he opposed Putin-Scholz call

The call from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Russian President Vladimir Putin has opened a “Pandora’s box” and given Moscow what it wanted, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said.

Scholz phoned Putin on Friday, the first time the two have spoken in almost two years. The conversation lasted for almost an hour and touched on Ukraine, among other things.

“Chancellor Scholz told me that he was going to call Putin,” Zelensky said in his evening video address. “Now there may be other conversations, other calls.”

Zelensky lamented that this would weaken Russia’s “isolation” and lead to “just a lot of words,” without any practical results. “We know how to act. And we want to warn: there will be no ‘Minsk-3’. We need real peace,”he added.

The two Minsk agreements were brokered by France and Germany to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. The former leaders of Germany and France later admitted they were a ruse to buy Kiev time to prepare for war. Putin cited Zelensky’s open refusal to implement the Minsk agreements as a factor in the conflict escalating in February 2022.

Earlier in the day, an anonymous source in Kiev told Reuters that Zelensky had asked Scholz not to call Moscow, arguing that Russia “doesn’t want real peace.”

According to Berlin’s readout of the call, Scholz demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and insisted that Germany will continue backing Kiev. Scholz is currently on track to face a no-confidence vote and an early election after his governing coalition collapsed over budget disputes. Berlin has redirected billions of euros from its domestic priorities to Ukraine over the past several years.

The Kremlin’s readout of the call noted that Putin explained the root causes of the conflict to Scholz and said that Moscow remains open to resuming the talks that Kiev broke off. Putin said that Russia’s terms were “well known” and outlined in his speech in June.

“Possible agreements should take into account the interests of the Russian Federation in the security sphere, proceed from new territorial realities, and most importantly eliminate the root causes of the conflict,” the Kremlin said.

The call, the first of its kind since December 2022, had been in the works for several weeks and “closely coordinated” with the US, UK, France, and other G7 members, Der Spiegel reported on Friday. It was deliberately timed for after the US presidential elections but before the G20 summit in Brazil, which Scholz is supposed to attend on Sunday. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to represent Russia at the gathering, to which Zelensky was not invited.