German Chancellor Olaf Scholz BERLIN, Mar 22 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Berlin believes necessary for the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to go beyond the formats in which they are currently taking place, recalling the desire of Vladimir Zelensky to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. «We need direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine that would go beyond what we have You know that the Ukrainian president really wants direct negotiations with Putin. And we urgently need a truce, the withdrawal of interventionists and the opportunity to agree on peace,» Scholz said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Zelensky called on Germany to close ports to Russia. Earlier, Zelensky said he was ready to discuss the topic of Crimea and Donbass with the Russian president, but a solution could not be reached at the first meeting. The press secretary of the head of the Russian state, Dmitry Peskov, said that the president of the Russian Federation and Zelensky had nothing to fix yet, there were still no agreements at the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. After the start of the special operation, the Russian Federation and Ukraine held three rounds of negotiations in Belarus, the Russian delegation is headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky. Now negotiations in this format are held daily via video link. Medinsky stated that the neutral status of Ukraine and its non-entry into NATO are the topics on which Moscow and Kyiv have brought their negotiating positions as close as possible. According to him, Moscow and Kyiv are «halfway» on the issue of demilitarization of Ukraine within the framework of the ongoing negotiation process. He also noted that the people of Donbass should decide for themselves the issue of managing the territories they live in. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.» According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the President of Russia emphasized. for arms purchases
