German Chancellor Olaf Schulz said that Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war with the aim of “occupying” Ukraine. Shultz said that NATO has never posed a threat to Russia. According to Shultz he assured Putin that Ukraine would not join NATO “in the next 30 years”
German Chancellor Olaf Schulz accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of launching an attack on Ukraine for “completely absurd” reasons. He said that “NATO has never been a threat to Russia,” he said on Sunday in Berlin during a public dialogue at the federal government’s open day.
For years, Moscow has accused NATO of increasing eastward expansion to the detriment of Russia’s interests. According to Shultz, during the talks before the start of the war in February, he assured Putin that Ukraine would not join NATO “in the next 30 years.” However, Schultz said Putin had “absolutely absurd” ideas.
The Russian president told the German chancellor that Belarus and Ukraine should not actually be independent countries. Olaf Schulz is sure that Dimir Putin planned this war long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. “This is a war that Putin clearly started with the intention of conquering his neighboring country. I think that was the original goal.”
“Putin had the idea of actually sliding a marker across the European landscape and then saying, ‘This is mine and this is yours,'” Schulz said, adding that Germany could not accept that. However, Schulz announced that he would not end the dialogue with Putin. He promised. Germany will continue to provide Ukraine “what it needs for its defense”, he said German Chancellor Olaf Schulz who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 15 in an attempt to prevent the Russian invasion.