Enlarge image

Sahra Wagenknecht: Apparently Putin wants to negotiate

Photo: Chris Emil Janssen / Chris Emil Janßen / IMAGO

Sahra Wagenknecht denies that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to wipe out Ukraine and overthrow its leadership.

The chairwoman of the new BSW party named after her told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” that Putin had expressed “something different” in an interview with the American journalist Tucker Carlson.

»He says that if Ukrainians want to live in their own state, then they should do that.

And that he wants to negotiate.”

Wagenknecht also has an idea for Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine: “We should strive for a solution like in Saarland after the Second World War, where people could decide which country they wanted to belong to.”

After the Second World War, Saarland was administered by France, had limited independence and was not initially part of the Federal Republic.

Only after a referendum in 1955 was the area incorporated into the Federal Republic.

In a TV interview with the right-wing journalist, Putin repeatedly claimed that the Ukrainians were "part of the Russian people."

We have to “get rid of” people like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukraine is not an independent state, but a "satellite" of the USA and the West; the CIA was involved in the Maidan and the operations in Donbass.

It was the first "interview" with Putin since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine - even if there were no critical questions in the conversation.

Wagenknecht, on the other hand, said: “Anyone who tells people that the world is bad because there is a crazy person in the Kremlin is taking them for fools.” We have to “think about how we can get out of this confrontation.

And what other solution is there than a return to detente and a balance of interests?" Putin "doesn't have to be trusted."

But if someone says they want to negotiate, you should try to “do exactly that.”

The aim is “first and foremost to agree on a ceasefire and freeze the conflict on the current front line.”

mfh