Zelensky accuses German chancellor of opening ‘Pandora’s box’ with Putin

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticized a call between Germany’s chancellor and Russian President Vladimir Putin as opening a “Pandora’s box” that only works to undermine efforts to isolate Russia’s leader.

“This is exactly what Putin has been wanting for a long time: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation, Russia’s isolation, and to have normal negotiations that will not end in anything,” Zelensky said about Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s call.

The conversation on Friday was the first time Scholz had spoken with Putin in two years. It comes as the German leader gears up for a snap election and Europe waits to hear US President-elect Donald Trump’s plan for ending the war in Ukraine.

On the call, Scholz urged Putin to pull his forces out of Ukraine and begin talks with Kyiv that would open the way for a “just and lasting peace,” the German government said, Reuters reported.

The Kremlin said the conversation had come at Berlin’s request, and that Putin had told Scholz any agreement to end the war in Ukraine must take Russian security interests into account and reflect “new territorial realities.”

Zelensky and other European officials had cautioned Scholz against the move, according to sources familiar with the matter, who believed it was more for domestic consumption, Reuters reported.

Facing a snap election on Feb. 23, Scholz’s Social Democrats are coming under pressure from Russia-friendly populist parties on both sides of the political spectrum that argue the government has not deployed enough diplomacy to end the war, according to Reuters.

“The chancellor urged Russia to show willingness to enter talks with Ukraine with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace,” a German government spokesperson said in a statement, Reuters added.

“He stressed Germany’s unbroken determination to back Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression for as long as necessary,” the spokesperson added, said Reuters.

Ukraine said however that phone conversations with Putin brought no added value on the path to achieving a “just peace” in Ukraine. “This [the call] made it possible for Russia to change nothing in its policy, to do nothing in essence, and this is exactly what led to this war,” Zelensky said in his evening address.

The call comes in the week after Trump was elected as the next US president. He has suggested he could put a swift end to the war, without explaining how, and repeatedly criticized the scale of Western financial and military aid for Kyiv.

“It sends a bad signal especially after Trump’s election,” said one Western diplomat to Reuters, noting their country had told Berlin it was not a good idea. “My hope is that Scholz can now say to his electorate ‘look, I have done it, and it’s a waste of time as Putin isn’t open to anything’. But of course, (it is a) question about how Russia spins it.”

The Kremlin said Putin had told Scholz Russia was willing to look at energy deals if Germany was interested. Germany was heavily reliant on Russian gas before the war but direct shipments ceased when pipelines under the Baltic Sea were blown up in 2022.

Scholz plans to brief Zelensky, Germany’s allies, partners and the heads of the European Union and NATO on the outcome of Friday’s call, German officials said, according to Reuters. Putin and Scholz agreed to stay in contact, they added.

Ukraine is facing increasingly difficult conditions on the frontlines in its east amid shortages of arms and personnel, while Russian forces make steady advances.

A separate German government official told Reuters that Scholz had told Putin the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia for combat missions against Ukraine was seen as a serious escalation and expansion of the conflict.

Zelensky says North Korea has 11,000 troops in Russia and that some have suffered casualties in combat with Ukrainian forces which are currently occupying territory in Russia’s southern Kursk region.

Germany has given Ukraine a total of 15 billion euros in financial, humanitarian and military support since the start of the full-scale war, making it Kyiv’s second-largest backer after the United States, according to Reuters.

The future of US aid to Ukraine is unclear following Trump’s election victory.

Scholz and Putin last spoke in December 2022, 10 months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, plunging relations with the West into their deepest freeze since the Cold War, Reuters added.

This is a developing story and will be updated.