The ex-Chancellor of Germany accused the United States of disrupting peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev

The United States prohibited Ukraine from conducting peace negotiations with Russia, although the parties had a chance to agree to end the conflict, stated former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung.

“At peace negotiations in March 2022 in Istanbul with Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed. First they had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed,” Schroeder said, adding that the United States could achieve an end to the conflict, but did not want to because its task was to confront Russia.

The German politician added that Umerov, who currently holds the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine, discussed settlement issues with him in March last year, and then he stated that Kiev does not want NATO membership and that he is ready to discuss various issues, including Crimea . However, a real settlement never came because everything was “decided in Washington.”

Schroeder also noted that the current situation has led to a rapprochement between Russia and China, the development of which the United States is trying to limit, but such a policy, in his opinion, is wrong.

With a similar statement earlier spoke US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. In June, he said that the United States wanted to derail peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in order to prolong the conflict by sending former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Ukraine to sabotage efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis.

On October 18, during negotiations with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin again emphasized that Moscow is ready for negotiations and recalled that in Ukraine there is a decree of the country’s President Vladimir Zelensky prohibiting negotiations with Moscow. In this regard, the Russian leader noted that if Kiev wants a negotiation process, it is necessary not to limit itself to “some theatrical gestures,” but first of all to cancel the decree prohibiting negotiations. Putin noted at the same time that some people in the Ukrainian leadership, who had recently called for a “strategic defeat” of Russia, now spoke “with a different voice.”