BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday that forcing a deal to end the war with Russia on Ukraine would not lead to lasting peace, after US President Donald Trump revealed plans to start talks with President Vladimir Putin.
The war in Ukraine “must end as quickly as possible”, Scholz told reporters in Berlin, but the chancellor added that “a Russian victory or a Ukranian collapse will not lead to peace – on the contrary.
“This would put peace and stability in Europe at risk, far beyond Ukraine,” he said.
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Scholz said that while he supported Trump talking to Putin – and had done so himself in the past – the goal of such conversations was to make clear to the Russian leader “our expectations of a just peace in Ukraine and a return to a European security order in which borders cannot be changed by force”.
No decisions could be taken “about Ukraine without the Ukrainians nor about Europe without the Europeans”, he insisted.
Any peace deal “must be sustainable and secure Ukraine’s sovereignty”, he said. “For this reason we will never give our support to a dictated peace.”
He also rejected “any solution which would lead to an uncoupling of European and American security”, saying that “only one person would profit from this – President Putin”.
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