Angela Merkel pleads for continued dialogue with Russia, during farewell visit to Moscow

Published on : 08/20/2021 – 15:37

Angela Merkel pleaded, Friday August 20, in Moscow, for the continuation of the dialogue with Russia in spite of their “deep differences”, on the occasion of her last meeting with Vladimir Poutine before the chancellor leaves the capacity.

After placing flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow, the Chancellor was greeted at the Kremlin by Vladimir Putin with a bouquet in hand.

“Even if we have deep differences, we talk to each other and it must continue like this,” noted the German Chancellor, who will leave in the fall after 16 years of power and a complex relationship with the master of the Kremlin.

Stressing that they had “a lot to discuss”, Angela Merkel cited the situation in Afghanistan, bilateral ties, but without mentioning the case of Alexeï Navalny during this preliminary exchange. A press conference by the two leaders is expected in the afternoon, after 1 p.m. GMT.

“Many questions need to be discussed”, says Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Poutine told him that this meeting was not “just a farewell visit”, but a “serious” meeting between these veterans of European political life because “many questions must be discussed”.

Angela Merkel, the Russian speaker who grew up in the GDR, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, German speaking because he served the KGB in East Germany, have always prided themselves on having established a real working relationship.

Apart from Afghanistan and the case of Alexeï Navalny, a pet peeve of the Kremlin who saw his organization dismantled by the authorities, the two leaders should also discuss the disputes such as espionage, repression in Belarus and the war in Ukraine.

On the “anniversary” of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, this visit by the German Chancellor appears to be symbolic. Because after two days in a coma in a Siberian hospital, the anti-corruption activist was transferred to Berlin on August 22, 2020.

>> Navalny affair: the mystery of the three German companies sanctioned by Washington

It was there that his poisoning with a Soviet military product, Novichok, was diagnosed and treated. Saved, he will accuse the Kremlin and its security services (FSB). Since then, the West, Berlin in mind, demands explanations from Moscow, which denies everything.

Christo Grozev, an author of Bellingcat, an investigative media who claims to have identified the FSB commando in charge of the poisoning, thus estimated on Twitter that the date of Angela Merkel’s visit could be either a sign of “appeasement “towards Moscow is” a sincere attempt to put pressure on Putin “.

The Navalny affair, a black spot in relations between Germany and Russia

Chancellor spokesperson Steffen Seibert stressed on Wednesday that the Navalny affair “weighs heavily on the relationship with Russia” because he “is unjustly imprisoned”. French President Emmanuel Macron went in this direction, asking Vladimir Putin by phone on Thursday for the release of Alexei Navalny.

As a welcome for Angela Merkel, Russian diplomacy issued a long statement, accusing Berlin and its allies of using the Navalny affair to “attack” Moscow and interfere in the legislative elections scheduled for September .

The opponent thanked him from his prison, in a message on social networks, all those who saved his life and affirmed that he would continue his fight.

“I have a second chance to live, and to make all the decisions that I feel are right and honest,” he wrote on Friday. Another hot topic for this latest Merkel-Putin meeting: Ukraine. Angela Merkel is trying with France to negotiate with Moscow a solution to the pro-Russian separatist conflict that has been tearing apart the east of the country since 2014, triggered in the wake of the Russian annexation of Crimea. But the process is deadlocked.

The Chancellor is also expected Sunday in Kiev. But behind the angry subjects, Angela Merkel also has points of convergence with the Russia of Vladimir Putin. The two veterans thus finally imposed on the United States, on suspicious Europeans and on Ukraine a submarine gas pipeline, Nord-Stream 2 which will increase the supply of Russian gas to Germany and Europe for decades to come.

With AFP