There is an increasing appetite among European powers to engage with Russia toward ending the war in Ukraine. To that end, some suggest a mediator should facilitate negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.More than four years after the war began, Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, gained an increasingly decrepit economy, and failed to secure any significant military success. This leads the Europeans to foolishly believe that Putin might now be open to major concessions. But referencing the prospect of a mediator, Putin suggested last weekend that, “Of all European politicians, I would prefer talks with [former German Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder.”
Putin is showing his very dismissive view of the European outreach here.
After all, Schroeder is an overt Russian asset, someone who long ago sold his soul to the Kremlin in order to enrich himself as a top Russian energy advisor. Ukraine would rightly regard him not simply as a wholly unreliable mediator, but as a direct proxy for Putin. The former KGB officer knows as much.
But even if Putin is floating Schroeder’s name as a joke, more serious observers are making a near equally absurd mediator suggestion of their own. It’s another former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who was in power from 2005 to 2021.
