Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder traveled to Moscow to try to mediate with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the war launched against Ukraine, the European edition of the American news portal Politico reported on Thursday.
At the request of the Ukrainian side, Gerhard Schröder visits the Russian president, who is one of his friends
- said Matthew Karnitschnig, senior staff member of the European edition of Politico, which belongs to the German media group Axel Springer, on the German news television Welt, which also belongs to Axel Springer.
He added that the German federal government had been informed about Gerhard Schröder's trip to Moscow.
Also, the European edition of Politico recently wrote that all four members of the staff working as public employees around the former chancellor resigned because they considered Schröder's opinion on the Russian attack on Ukraine unacceptable.
The former chancellor said the same in one of his writings
he condemned the war, but added that "both sides made mistakes" and that NATO had provoked Moscow with its expansion to the east after the Cold War.
The retired politician and former chairman of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) publicly condemned Russia's war on Ukraine after weeks of criticism for his corporate positions in the Russian energy industry, which he has yet to resign.
As prime minister, Gerhard Schröder - as head of the SPD and Greens coalition between 1998-2005 - became friends with Vladimir Putin. During his time in office, he caused the most shock with one of his statements in 2004:
he believed that the Russian president was an "impeccable democrat".
After the lost 2005 federal parliamentary (Bundestag) election, he assumed the position of president of the supervisory board of the company (Nord Stream AG) founded to build the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany by bypassing Ukraine and Poland under the Baltic Sea, and in 2017 he was also elected chairman of the supervisory board by the shareholders of the Rosneft oil and gas industry company at the suggestion of the Russian state, the majority owner.
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