BERLIN, August 28. /TASS/. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron were surprised when during their telephone conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2022 the Russian leader did not mention the sanctions imposed on Moscow, the daily Bild reports.

"Something bothers me more than the talks: he [Putin] didn’t complain about the sanctions at all. I don't know if he did so in the conversation with you [Macron]. He didn't even mention them," Bild quotes Scholz as saying while talking to the French leader after talks with the Russian president. "Not with me, either," the newspaper quoted Macron's response.

At the same time, the German chancellor noted that the Russian president had explained his point of view on what was happening in Ukraine.

"He told me about all his ideas on how a compromise could be achieved. He talked about demilitarization and denazification," Scholz recalled, adding that the Russian leader also talked about the need to recognize Crimea as part of Russia as well as the independence of the DPR and LPR, which later became part of Russia.

EU sanctions against Russia were first imposed in 2014 and have since been extended twice a year - in January and July - for 6 months. Since February 24, 2022, 11 packages of anti-Russian measures have been imposed in this way. The EU sanctions affected more than 1,800 individuals and legal entities. This is the largest-scale sanctions regime in the EU’s history. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the unilateral sanctions against Russia were illegitimate and the West’s pressure on Moscow, unprecedented.