Chancellor Olaf Scholz knows that his inaugural trips to Kyiv on Monday and Moscow on Tuesday, his first trip east as German leader, may also be his last chance to avoid war in Europe.
Just 68 days on the job, the Social Democratic Party chancellor spent the weekend reading alarming intelligence reports from the Ukrainian-Russian border and consulting with his predecessor, Angela Merkel.
Despite a sinking feeling on Sunday, his officials talked up as a glimmer of hope, however weak, the fact that Scholz’s trip is happening at all.
“The point of this trip is to get a better understanding of what Russia’s goals are in all this,” said a senior official, expressing hope that there remains a will – and a way – back to direct dialogue with Moscow in a number of formats.
After last week’s trip to Moscow by French president Emmanuel Macron, Scholz has three priorities in his first personal meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
‘Considerable’ consequences
He will present, in clear terms, how Germany and its partners view the situation – “extremely threatening” – and their united determination that Russia will face “considerable” consequences if it invades Ukraine. Beyond these familiar points, Scholz is anxious, too, to offer the Russian leader a de-escalation off-ramp.
“It’s good that we can make these three points in person to Putin,” said the senior Berlin official on Sunday. “I don’t assume we will come out with concrete results, it won’t be the first time that these things have been discussed, but it won’t be the last time.”
After French and US leaders held their own bilateral talks with the Russia president, German officials deny that Putin will hear anything different from Scholz. They insist there is a striking level of unity among western allies about the “painful” sanctions looming, but concede that Germany’s geography and history informs Berlin’s approach to Russia.
On his first stop in Kyiv, Scholz is likely to promise further economic aid to Ukraine, which already stands at €2 billion since 2014.
Nothing concrete
But he will have nothing concrete to offer his hosts for use on the front with Russia. Germany refuses to supply lethal equipment to Ukraine but a government source said on Sunday that the government was studying wish lists again and there was a possibility of Germany supplying non-lethal military equipment.
“Given our history, even the idea of German weapons being used to shoot against Russian soldiers is simply unthinkable,” said Dr Gero Neugebauer, a Berlin political scientist and SPD analyst.
Despite its reservations over weapons exports, senior SPD government and party officials have moved in recent days to quell doubt in Ukraine and among Germany’s allies over Berlin’s willingness to stand up to a Russian invasion. Close Scholz allies insist there will be no taboos over sanctions and have moved to disown Gerhard Schröder, a former SPD chancellor turned Russian energy lobbyist.
Shadow of war
The shadow of war hung over Sunday’s re-election of Frank Walter Steinmeier as Germany’s federal president for a second time. Steinmeier – a former SPD foreign minister and then Schröder’s former chief of staff – said it was clear that Russia, and no one else, was responsible for the growing military conflict. That was a clear dig at Schröder, who last month attributed “sabre-rattling” in the conflict to Ukraine.
Steinmeier said the people of Ukraine had a right to peace and self-determination and he appealed to Putin to “release the noose around Ukraine’s neck”.
“Find with us a path that keeps the peace in Europe,” he said. “Do not underestimate the strength of democracy.”