90-minute phone call: Scholz gives insights into Putin's lack of understanding - Baerbock demand follows
Created: 09/15/2022, 10:06 am
After the phone call with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz commented on the content.
Foreign Minister Baerbock calls for tank deliveries from Germany.
Moscow/Berlin - According to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to assume that he made the right decision in attacking Ukraine.
"Unfortunately, I can't tell you that the realization has grown there that it was a mistake to start this war," Scholz said on Wednesday about his phone call with Putin the day before.
The Chancellor continued: "There was no indication that new attitudes were emerging there." Nevertheless, it was right to talk to each other "and to say what I think I have to say on this subject," said Scholz a meeting with the Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, who had come to Berlin for his inaugural visit.
Scholz gives an insight into Putin's phone call: Chancellor calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops
On Tuesday, the chancellor spent 90 minutes on the phone with Putin, demanding a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
He was firmly convinced "that Russia must withdraw, withdraw its troops, so that peace has a chance in the region," Scholz said on Wednesday.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock meanwhile urged a quick decision on the delivery of German battle tanks to Ukraine.
The German arms deliveries would obviously help "save human lives" very clearly, she told the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
.
So "a foreign policy guided by human rights must constantly ask itself how we can help to liberate even more villages and thus save lives through further deliveries".
After the Scholz-Putin call, Baerbock demands the delivery of German battle tanks to Ukraine
German arms aid must be based on how more of the equipment that is already helping so efficiently - i.e. air defense, artillery and rocket launchers - can be delivered, said Baerbock.
In addition, repair and ammunition delivery would have to be strengthened.
She wants to discuss with the armaments industry whether own production lines for missing ammunition could be created, for example for the anti-aircraft tanks Gepard.
Regarding the delivery of German main battle tanks that Ukraine has requested, Baerbock said that a decision on this can only be made together - "in a coalition and internationally".
In the crucial phase that Ukraine is currently in, "I don't think it's a decision that should be delayed for long."
After the recent successes of Ukraine's counter-offensive in the fight against the Russian invasion troops, calls were made, particularly by the FDP and the Greens, to quickly deliver more tanks to Ukraine.
(AFP/fmu)
