The Times - UK (2022-02-16)

8 Wednesday February 16 2022 | the times

News

At least there is one respect in which

Olaf Scholz differs from Angela Merkel,

his predecessor as chancellor of

Germany: he has a good poker face.

Standing before the gilded doors of a

hall in the Kremlin , he watched Presi-

dent Putin accuse Ukraine of carrying

out “a genocide” against its Russian-

speaking minority and rail against

Nato’s military intervention in Yugo-

slavia, but his expression barely shifted.

It was only when Scholz turned to the

threat of an imminent armed conflict

that he allowed any emotions to show.

“For my generation, war in Europe has

become unthinkable and we must

ensure that it remains so,” he said. “It’s

our damned duty and task as heads of

state and government to prevent a

conflict from escalating in Europe.”

It is hard to think of a less messianic

German chancellor picks his moment

world leader than Scholz. The chancel-

lor, 63, is a studiously unheroic figure

who plays with his cards close to his

chest, often confining himself to meas-

ured generalities in the matter-of-fact

tones of a Hamburg industrial lawyer.

Before yesterday’s ’s talks with Putin,

however, Ukraine had cast Scholz as

more or less the last man standing in

the way of armed conflict.

Germany has carefully put itself in a

position to seize precisely this kind of

moment. While some Nato allies have

shipped missiles to Ukraine and issued

apocalyptic warnings of an imminent

attack, Scholz has preserved a sphinx-

like “strategic ambiguity”, including on

the future of the Nord Stream 2 gas

pipeline from Russia to Germany.

This fence-sitting has riled Ukraine

and irked some European neighbours.

“I cannot understand some of the posi-

tions Germany has taken,” one senior

foreign diplomat in Berlin said. “Refus-

ing to send weapons to Ukraine is a big

deal. And why won’t he even say the

words ‘Nord Stream 2’ in public?”

Yet figures close to Scholz say his

ambivalence is intended to maximise

his room for manoeuvre as an “honest

broker” between Ukraine, Nato and

Russia. Over nearly six years as a cabi-

net minister under Merkel, 67, he

absorbed her techniques for defusing

conflict: waiting things out, avoiding

public provocations, searching for com-

mon ground, systematically chipping

big problems down into smaller chunks.

Yesterday’s meeting was not quite the

last-chance saloon it was made out to

be in some quarters. Nor did Scholz

come up with a masterstroke that could

radically alter Putin’s calculations. Yet if

patient, undemonstrative diplomacy

can avert a war in Ukraine, this was at

least a first step down that road.

Oliver Moody

Kyiv

Kharkiv

Minsk Yelnya

Moscow

Donbas

region

Separatist

area

30,

Estimated number

of troops deployed

in Belarus

Brestsky

Pogonovo

MOLDOVA Rostov-on-Don

Volgograd

Bakhchysarai

It is estimated that

Russia has deployed

about 137,

troops near the

Ukraine border

LITHUANIA

POLAND

BLACK SEA

10,

5,

1,

UKRAINE

BELARUS

Source: Janes.

Updated Feb 2022

100 miles RUSSIA

CRIMEA

Russian troop

numbers

Military activity

Nato member

President Putin declined to rule out
going to war with Ukraine but said he
was prepared to negotiate with the
West on “certain points” after three
hours of crisis talks with Olaf Scholz,
the German chancellor, in Moscow
yesterday.
The Russian leader said he was ready
to “co-operate” on a putative deal with
Nato and the US to maintain the
balance of power in Europe, including
restrictions on strategic missiles.
While there was no decisive diplo-
matic breakthrough, Putin, 69, also said
he wanted an “immediate” answer on
whether or when Ukraine might join
Nato after suggestions that it could
agree to put its membership aspirations
on hold.
Scholz’s visit to the Kremlin had been
billed by one Ukrainian ambassador as
the last chance to preserve “world

peace” following warnings from
Washington that armed conflict could
break out at any moment.
Several western intelligence agen-
cies claim Russia has already drawn up
a plan of attack. Estonia published what
it said was a list of targets that Russian
secret service agents would be ordered
to “neutralise” in an invasion, including
Ukrainian military bases, oil refineries
and nuclear reactors.
However, Russia has indicated a
willingness to negotiate, saying that the
“possibilities were far from being
exhausted”.
Yesterday Scholz seized that opening
with a rare display of emotion, saying it
was world leaders’ “damned duty” to
prevent an armed conflict.
When Putin was asked whether he
would commit himself to averting war,
he said “of course we don’t want it”. He
added: “Depending on how this dia-
logue [on European security] develops,
the situation will develop in all the
areas that worry you and us. And it
worries us just as much as you, I can

Vladimir Putin demanded guarantees
over Ukraine’s membership of Nato

News Ukraine crisis

Putin hints at deal with Nato

Oliver Moody Berlin assure you.” He also appeared to sug-
gest that Russia could resume its build-
up of troops around Ukraine if the talks
lost momentum. “Who can answer the
question of how the situation [on the
ground] will develop? Up to now, no
one,” he said. “We are working to reach
an agreement with our partners about
the questions we have put so that they
can be resolved on a diplomatic level.”
Putin said he urgently wanted bind-
ing reassurances about the prospect of
Ukraine becoming a Nato member.
“We’ve been told for 30 years that
there would be no expansion to the
east, not a centimetre, and now we see
Nato’s infrastructure right on our front
door,” he said. “Then it’s said that
Ukraine... will only be allowed to join
when it’s ready. But that could already
be too late for us. For that reason we
want to resolve this question now.”
He was open to a security deal with
Nato and the US over disarmament
and limits on medium and long-range
ballistic missiles, as long as his “funda-
mental” concerns were taken into
account: “Russia cannot close its eyes to
the way Nato and the US are interpret-
ing the key principles of our common
and indivisible security quite loosely
and in their own interests.”
However, he said this issue was inex-
tricably linked to the status of the two
self-proclaimed republics in eastern
Ukraine that have been fighting Kyiv's
armed forces with Russian support
since 2014. Franco-German attempts
to broker a deal on the separatist terri-
tories in the Donbas have foundered for
eight years, with both sides accusing
each other of bad faith.
The White House has warned that
Moscow could fake a Ukrainian attack
in the Donbas as a pretext for war. Vlad-
imir Chizhov, Russia’s ambassador to
the EU, stoked further speculation by
warning of a “counterattack” against
Ukraine if any of the 500,000 Russian
citizens in the region came under fire.
Putin said Ukraine had “entrenched
discrimination” against Russian-speak-
ers in the area and urged the West to
“influence” Kyiv to soften its stance.
However, Scholz said Ukraine would
draw up laws setting out the “special
status” of the Donbas and paving the
way for regional elections, an impor-
tant precondition for diplomatic
progress on the issue.
Putin praised the German leader’s
“pragmatic attitude”, while Scholz said
he was hopeful that “dialogue in the
spirit of reciprocity” would prevail.
How the wheels turn in Putin’s mind,
letters, page 26
Russia has lost the trust of its
neighbours, leading article, page 27

S

o acute is

President Putin’s

concern about

catching Covid-

— or his desire to

unsettle visiting heads of

government — that guests

must submit to a Russian

PCR test if they wish to

sit anywhere near him

(Oliver Moody writes).

Those who demur must

instead sit at the opposite

end of a table so long that

it has become the subject

of dozens of satirical

memes. Not even Sergey

Lavrov, his long-serving

foreign minister, is

granted an exemption.

Yesterday Olaf Scholz,

the German chancellor,

declined to take the test

before his lengthy

negotiations with Putin,

instead having the

procedure carried out by

a doctor from Germany’s

embassy in Moscow.

President Macron also

refused when he met

Putin in the Kremlin last

week. Officially the

Élysée said that the

Russian test “did not

seem to us to be either

acceptable or compatible

with our diary

constraints”.

However, the true

reason appears to be

concern about what the

Leaders

distance

themselves

from PCRs

at Kremlin