Since 2024, a group of former senior German politicians has been meeting with Russians close to their leader, Vladimir Putin, in Baku. The most recent meeting took place in July. Ronald Pofalla, the former head of the Federal Chancellery, and Matthias Platzeck, former minister-president, flew from Berlin to Baku on July 12 and returned two days later. On the same day, Viktor Zubkov, a businessperson and former prime minister of Russia, and Valery Fadeyev, chairman of Russia's Human Rights Council, landed in Baku from Moscow, as they had the previous year. The trip remained private until July 16.
The format they used, the “Petersburg Dialogue,” echoes the German‑Russian forum that Russian President Vladimir Putin and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder founded in 2001. Berlin shut down the dialogue after Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
On July 21, at a Chancellery press conference with visiting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Deutsche Welle’s Roman Goncharenko asked Chancellor Friedrich Merz about the meeting. Merz replied that he knew nothing of such a meeting and that his government was not involved. Aliyev, standing beside him, then read out border‑service records confirming the arrivals and departures and added that neither side had notified Azerbaijan: Its territory had been used without its knowledge.
