Germany and France brokered a ceasefire in 2014 to end armed clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Kiev. Today, both states want to repeat that role in the Ukraine crisis
After French leader Emmanuel Macron’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, German leader Olaf Scholz paid a visit to Moscow today to try his hand at bringing an end to growing Ukraine escalations.
“Germany has long resisted giving a NATO perspective to Georgia and Ukraine. Even right now Germany is resisting a lot to give weapons to Ukraine,” says Bulent Guven, a Turkish-German political scientist, due to the country’s dependence on Russian gas. While Berlin has expressed its support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty like other NATO members prior to Scholz’s visit to Moscow, promising “very far-reaching measures that will have a significant impact on Russia's economic development opportunities," the German chancellor has conspicuously not mentioned Nord Stream.
Under pressure, Scholz will tell Putin that if Russia does not invade Ukraine, everything from Nord Stream to other Russia-Germany economic ties will stay intact and Berlin will work hard to persuade its Western allies to lift the harsh sanctions on Moscow, Guven says.
Macron added that the EU needs to develop its own defence strategy and army to protect its borders from outside threats.
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