The German conservative opposition sharply criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his calls during a television interview to work more intensively on negotiations to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, DPA reported, BTA reported.
Scholz is succumbing to Russian propaganda and continues to cling to the old self-serving German illusions about Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Roderich Kiesewetter – spokesperson for foreign policy in the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
He added that Scholz's change of heart was a "farce" that marked the end of his open declaration that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a turning point for German defense policy.
Scholz is trying to present himself as “chancellor of peace“ at the expense of Germany and its allies, told the German newspaper "Bild" Kieseweter. The chancellor is "worsening the situation in Ukraine and thus weakening European and German security". Kieseweter pointed out that the concessions to Russia fit into the strategy of some representatives of Scholz's CDU party to "very delicately pressure Ukraine into an imaginary peace, the terms of which are defined by Russia and in which support is gradually reduced and fake negotiations are called instead". ;.
The chancellor's remarks came less than two weeks before his fellow party member and current premier of the eastern state of Brandenburg, Dietmar Wojtke, faces a provincial election challenge amid the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
>The September 22nd election follows the September 1st election, which the AfD won in a state in Thuringia and became the second largest party, after the CDU, in the state of Saxony. For the first time since the National Socialists came to power in the 1930s, a far-right party has taken the lead in an election in Germany.