The Biden administration blocked Ukraine from agreeing to a peace agreement with Russia in the early days of the war, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has claimed.
In an interview with the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, Gerhard Schröder, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005, claimed that hundreds of thousands of lives could potentially have been saved if not for pressure exerted on Kyiv by Washington to reject peace negotiations with Moscow.
Schröder, who has faced criticism over his friendship with Vladimir Putin and his business ties in Russia, including as a broad member of the Nord Stream 2 AG, revealed that last year he was asked by Ukraine to act as a mediator with Moscow to seek a peaceful end to the conflict after the Russian military invaded the former Soviet state.
“The only people who could settle the war against Ukraine are the Americans,” the former chancellor said. “At the peace negotiations in March 2022 in Istanbul with [now-Ukrainian Defence Minister] Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed.”
“The war could be ended if geopolitical interests were not at play,” he added.
Schröder said that he had two conversations with Umerov, as well as a private discussion with Vladimir Putin and then with the Russian president’s envoy. He said that Umerov expressed willingness to agree to terms that would give safety guarantees to Kyiv while addressing several key concerns of the Kremlin, such as Ukraine committing not to join NATO and introducing reforms to grant more autonomy to the heavily ethnic Russian Donbas region.
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The ex-chancellor also said that Kyiv was willing to discuss the status of Crimea — which Russia annexed in 2014 — and pointed to contemporary reporting from the Bild newspaper to back up his claims.
“He [Umerov] also showed willingness on the other points,” Schröder said. “But in the end, nothing happened. My impression: Nothing could happen because everything else was decided in Washington. That was fatal. Because the result will now be that Russia will be tied more closely to China, which the West should not want.”
“Americans believe they are strong enough to keep both sides in check. In my humble opinion, this is a mistake. Just look at how torn the American side is now. Look at the chaos in Congress,” the former German leader added.
Schröder’s criticism was not limited to the Biden administration, with the ex-chancellor saying that both French President Emmanuel Macron and his successor as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz need to do more to lobby for the cause of peace, saying that the war is “not just an American matter but above all a European matter.”
He argued that rather than trying to come up with solutions to end the war, Western leaders seem to be more interested in the question of how to supply Ukraine with more weapons, which the former German chancellor said has been to the “delight of the American and German arms industries.”
“Why can’t support for Ukraine be combined with an offer to talk to Russia?” Schröder questioned. “The arms deliveries are not a solution for eternity. But no one wants to talk. Everyone is sitting in trenches. How many more people have to die? It’s a bit like the Middle East. Who are the victims on one side and on the other? Poor people who lose their children. None of the people who matter are moving.”
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 30, 2023
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