Putin not planning to meet with Scholz and Trump "at the moment"

Russian President Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov has denied claims that meetings between Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President-elect Donald Trump are currently being prepared.

Earlier, Bundestag member Roderich Kiesewetter made statements about the preparations for these meetings. He claimed that Scholz could visit Moscow by February 23, and that the meeting between Trump and Putin is "planned for March." "There are no such plans at the moment," Peskov said.

As Der Spiegel magazine previously reported, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has allegedly received information that Scholz may soon travel to Moscow to boost the ratings of his Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) ahead of the elections. The German cabinet told TASS that this information is fabricated.

This was stated in the diplomat's statement, which was published on the German Foreign Ministry website before the head of the department's visit to Damascus. "It is time for Russia to abandon its military bases in Syria," Burbock noted.

He noted that Germany and its international partners do not want the Syrian process to be disrupted from outside, and that this includes respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of neighboring states.

"We now have a goal that millions of Syrians also aspire to: a functioning state that fully controls its territory, that offers people the protection and assistance they need to survive," the statement said.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, responded on her Telegram channel to the statement of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock about Russian military bases in Syria.

"This is what the foreign minister of the country where US military bases are located says." "I have a question: isn't it time for the German Foreign Minister to say something similar to Washington from this perspective?" Zakharova wrote.