Schröder is said to have been asked by Ukraine to mediate days ago, met with a Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, Turkey, and will now talk to Putin about the Ukraine war in Moscow. According to dpa information, a first meeting between Schröder and Putin took place on Thursday. It was initially unclear whether more were planned.
A photo that his wife published on her Instagram account on Thursday evening suggests that Schröder is actually in Moscow. It shows Soyeon Schröder-Kim in a room overlooking St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. With closed eyes, she folds her hands piously in prayer. She did not comment on this picture.
In the Turkish port city of Antalya, Ukraine and Russia had previously held unsuccessful talks about a possible ceasefire. “Ukraine seems to want to leave no stone unturned and see if Schroeder can build a bridge for dialogue with Putin,” according to a person familiar with the matter.
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According to “Politico”, the Ukrainian side is said to have approached Schröder via the CEO of the Swiss publishing house Ringier, Marc Walder. Schröder has worked for Ringier since 2006. His advisory mandate for the publishing house was recently put on hold.
Schröder is said to have been asked through Ringier to travel to Istanbul on Monday to meet a Ukrainian delegation. According to the report by “Politico”, Schröder-Kim accompanied her husband. According to the report, Schröder’s most important interlocutor during the meeting was Ukrainian MP Rustem Umerov.
Ukrainian ambassador knows nothing about Schröder’s trip to Moscow
Umerov said he was sent by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, hoping that Schröder could at least help negotiate a ceasefire with Putin. Schröder had agreed to mediate.
Schröder’s subsequent request for a meeting with Putin is said to have been answered positively within ten minutes. Schröder and Schröder-Kim were then taken to Moscow on a Russian plane on Wednesday.
There was initially no official confirmation of the presentation. The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, told the dpa news agency: “I don’t know anything about it. I can hardly imagine that my government asked Schröder to do this.”
Just a week ago, Melnyk suggested that Schröder mediate between Ukraine and Russia. “He is one of the few here in Germany who may still have a direct line to Mr. Putin. There is no one who has something like that in Germany and the other European countries,” said the ambassador of the “image”.
The federal government and Schröder’s party, the SPD, were completely unprepared. According to Handelsblatt information, neither the Federal Chancellery nor the party leadership were informed about the trip, they only found out about it from the press. It will be seen whether and what Schröder will do on his journey, it said.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was asked about the process on the sidelines of an EU summit in Versailles, France. All he said was, “I don’t want to comment on that.”
Strong criticism of Schröder because of Putin proximity
Schröder’s action met with a positive response from other social democrats. “Anything that helps to stop this horrible war in Ukraine is good,” party leader Lars Klingbeil told Der Spiegel.
The chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag, Michael Roth (SPD), also welcomed the efforts of the former chancellor. “Every chance should be taken to silence the guns,” Roth said on ZDF. The people of Ukraine deserved that. “That’s why I keep my fingers crossed.”
The Union chairman in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU), was critical of the “Politico” report. Basically, especially with regard to Russia, “extreme caution applies to news, reports and the narratives they are intended to contain,” Kiesewetter told the Handelsblatt. “We are also currently experiencing an information war by Putin, which must be kept in mind.”
Nevertheless, all efforts and attempts to “dissuade Putin from his wrong path” are actually correct. With regard to former Chancellor Schröder’s commitment, Kiesewetter emphasized that he doubted whether this would help the overall situation. “Putin has broken international law, he is deliberately bombing the civilian population of Ukraine, and Mr. Schröder is still in Russian service.”
The former chancellor is a Russian lobbyist and has contributed to the “problematic dependency in the energy sector and to the questionable image of Russia for years”. “In this respect, I do not see him as a credible mediation partner,” said the CDU politician.
Schröder has been heavily criticized in the SPD leadership for weeks, and the former chancellor is even threatened with a party expulsion process. Schröder has been working as a gas lobbyist for Putin for many years. He is involved with the energy companies Nord Stream 1 and 2 and the oil company Rosneft, where he is chairman of the board. In addition, Schröder is to take on a supervisory board position for Gazprom.
Exclusion proceedings against Schröder applied for
The SPD leadership had repeatedly asked Schröder to resign his mandates and given him an ultimatum. “The clock is ticking,” said SPD party leader Lars Klingbeil.
In a letter this week, Klingbeil and his co-boss Saskia Esken, along with eight former SPD leaders, once again called on Schröder to distance himself from Putin. “Act and speak clear words,” they demanded. SPD faction leader Rolf Mützenich described the letter on Thursday as a “clear signal”. So far, nothing has been known about a response from the former party leader.
Independently of this, the local SPD association in Heidelberg has already applied for party exclusion proceedings against Schröder, which are currently being examined. The SPD also deleted Schröder from an online ancestral gallery.
But not only in the SPD did Schröder fall out of favor. The workers’ welfare organization withdrew Schröder from the Heinrich Albertz Peace Prize awarded in 2005, the Borussia Dortmund football club from honorary membership, and the city of Hanover from honorary citizenship.
Good relationship with Putin and his mandates
Although Schröder condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine, he maintained his good relationship with Putin and his mandates. To those he confides in, he is supposed to argue that he sees himself as right and that everyone else is wrong. The 77-year-old should leave calls from the SPD and from old companions unanswered.
His wife Soyeon Schröder-Kim spoke publicly on Instagram last Saturday and defended her husband in a post. Schröder-Kim wrote in her contribution that she was appalled at the haste with which the SPD in the leadership, but also in many basic organizations, supported a campaign against her husband.
>> Read here: Political scientist calls Schröder’s behavior on the Russia question “self-absorbed, stubborn and incapable of insight”
“You can be sure that whatever my husband can do to help end the war, he will do it, regardless of ultimatums from the SPD or other organizations such as the DFB.”
Schröder-Kim had previously brought her husband into play as a possible peace mediator, but deleted a corresponding post shortly afterwards. Now Schröder is actually in Moscow. It is now completely open whether he can make a difference there.
More: Former Chancellor Schröder loses all employees in the Bundestag office