BERLIN (Reuters) – Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, political news website Politico reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The visit comes after talks in Istanbul with a Ukrainian politician who is a member of the country’s delegation for peace talks with Russia, the sources told Politico.
Asked about the reports of the visit, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters on the sidelines of a summit of European leaders in France that he did not wish to comment on the matter. Scholz has sought to distance himself from his fellow Social Democrat in recent weeks.
The German government has not agreed to any meeting nor been involved in one, two government sources told Reuters.
Schroeder, German chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has been under the microscope over his links to Russian companies.
He is on the board of Russian oil giant Rosneft and is chairman of the shareholders’ committee of the company that is in charge of building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and which is being sanctioned by the United States.
He has faced calls from some German government politicians to step down from such roles as the other former leaders announced they were leaving positions on the boards of Russian companies over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Miranda Murray, Sarah Marsh, Sabine Siebold and Andreas Rinke; editing by Emma Thomasson and Alistair Bell)
