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According to Schroeder the peace deal that was taking shape was shot down by the US at the last moment. / bne IntelliNews
Former German leader Schroeder divulges more detail on thwarted Russia-Ukraine peace deal
Ben Aris in Berlin
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is the latest figure to confirm that a Russia- Ukraine peace deal was nearly reached in the spring of 2022. He discussed
the apparent near-success that could have brought the war in Ukraine to an early end in an interview with Berliner Zeitung on October 21.
"At the peace negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022 with [the now Defence Minister of Ukraine] Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainians did not agree on peace because they were not allowed to. For everything they discussed, they first had to ask the Americans,” Schroeder told the German newspaper.
www.bne.eu
The question of whether a peace deal was so very nearly sealed between Ukraine and Russia remains a hugely controversial topic. As bne IntelliNews reported at the time, a contemporary report by Ukrainska Pravda claimed a deal between the Kremlin and Bankova was put together in March and April.
“Wow! The Ex-leader of Germany corroborates statements by ex-Israeli PM [Naftali Bennett], Ukrainian officials close to [Ukraine's leader Volodomyr] Zelenskiy, ex-senior US officials and Russian leaders,” Ivan Katchanovski,
a professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa, said in response to the interview with Schroeder.
As the parties moved towards concluding the deal, the massacre
at Bucha in Ukraine, a slaughter
of hundreds of innocent civilians committed by retreating Russian troops, was discovered. The effort to seal the agreement was reportedly abandoned after former UK PM Boris Johnson flew to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskiy a few days later and advised him to abandon the path to the deal as the West would withdraw its support if he did not.
Schroeder was involved in the talks and, according to his interview, most of the peace deal negotiations were conducted before the Bucha story broke. Moreover, he claims it was the White House that