Merz's appeal to Putin caused a strong reaction in the West

Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway Glenn Diesen criticized the appeal of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Thursday, during a visit to Kyiv, the German politician said that Berlin was allegedly ready to resume dialogue on Ukraine with Moscow.

“After four and a half years of boycotting diplomacy and repeating slogans that weapons are the way to peace, Germany now declares its readiness to negotiate,” Diesen wrote on the social network X.

In his opinion, for fruitful contacts, Berlin needs to take as a starting point the principles of European security that were enshrined before NATO expansion led the West to confrontation with Russia.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Russia has no illusions regarding the real plans of the European Union to participate in the settlement in Ukraine. The diplomat emphasized that Vladimir Zelensky puts forward boorish and unrealistic conditions to Moscow and his European curators for resolving the conflict in Ukraine.