BERLIN, February 3. /TASS/. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the parties to the Normandy group (Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France) have managed to revitalize this format. He said it in an interview with the ZDF TV channel on Wednesday.
"There are negotiations initiated by the American President, which take place on a bilateral basis between Russia and the United States. There are negotiations between NATO and Russia within the Russia-NATO Council. There are negotiations within the OSCE and, of course, the so-called Normandy format, where Germany, France, together with Ukraine and Russia are trying to get out of the current very confusing situation," Scholz said.
"We really managed to breathe life into it again," he stressed.
The German Chancellor stated that the situation on the border between Russia and Ukraine is quite serious.
"This may be a prerequisite for this kind of military action, and that is why it is so important for us to be extremely clear in what we say and what we are preparing," Scholz said.
In this context, the Chancellor noted that every effort had been made to resolve the crisis through negotiations and prevent the situation from escalating.
On January 26, political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy format held negotiations in Paris. The first face-to-face meeting of representatives of all four countries in more than a year took place at the Elysee Palace and lasted eight and a half hours. The parties agreed to continue discussions in Berlin in two weeks. The previous meeting, which was held on January 6 in Moscow, but without the participation of a representative of Ukraine, lasted about 4.5 hours.
Recently, claims of Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine have been echoed quite often in Ukraine and throughout Western countries. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov lambasted such reports as an "empty and groundless escalation of tensions", underscoring that Russia does not pose any threat to anyone. Peskov noted that provocations may happen in order to justify such claims and warned that such attempts will bear the most serious consequences.