Based on talks with Trump, Scholz had expected Washington to continue its support for Kyiv, he told POLITICO
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In his conversation with Berlin Playbook, Olaf Scholz said he had been receiving indications from Donald Trump and his advisers that Washington would not perform such a dramatic U-turn on support for Kyiv. | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
February 13, 2025 2:45 pm CET
BERLIN — U.S. President Donald Trump appears not to have told Chancellor Olaf Scholz about his impending bombshell peace plan for Ukraine, despite Germany’s crucial role in supplying arms and aid to Kyiv.
Scholz spoke to POLITICO on Wednesday, only hours before the Trump administration’s shock announcement that it would conduct peace negotiations over the head of European leaders, effectively ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia and insisting that Europe should provide the lion’s share of military and financial aid.
In his conversation with Berlin Playbook, Scholz said he had been receiving indications from Trump and his advisers that Washington would not perform such a dramatic U-turn on support for Kyiv.
“The talks that I have had with [Trump] and that my advisers have also had with his advisers lead to the conclusion that we can hope and assume that the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine,” Scholz told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook podcast hours before Trump effectively called time on its support for Kyiv as it resists Russia’s invasion.
Later on Wednesday, Trump announced he would begin immediate negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin while U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out Ukrainian membership in NATO and said Europe “must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine.”
Hegseth also warned his counterparts at a NATO meeting in Brussels that Ukraine would not be able to take back all the territory Russia had seized, and said there would be no U.S. troops involved in any peacekeeping operation.
The German chancellery has not yet responded to a request for comment relating to the latest developments.
On the question of whether Germany would send troops as part of a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine, Scholz suggested there would be no solution without U.S. involvement.
“It is very clear to me that there must be no solution that is not also a solution in which the U.S. is involved, because transatlantic unity must always be guaranteed,” Scholz said when asked whether Gemany would send troops as part of any potential peacekeeping operation.
The fact that the chancellor of the EU’s biggest economy appeared to be unaware of Washington’s plans suggests Scholz’s expectation for transatlantic unity was misguided.
Germany is second only to the U.S. in providing military support for Ukraine. The country has also hosted around 1.2 million Ukrainians who have fled their country since Russia’s invasion almost three years ago.
“We have supported Ukraine over all these years,” Scholz said. “This is the basis for creating the prospect of a peaceful solution that is not a dictated peace over Ukraine. That must remain the principle, that decisions are not made over the heads of the Ukrainians.”
That, however, seems far less likely now.
In the coming days, eyes will be on the Munich Security Conference where U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In Munich, Vance is also scheduled to meet Germany’s likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in what will be the first high-level meeting between a member of Trump’s second administration and the German conservatives — who are in pole position to lead the country’s next government after the Feb. 23 parliamentary election.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, meanwhile, criticized Trump’s stance on negotiations with Moscow, lamenting that his administration had “made public concessions to Putin before talks even began.”
“In my view, it would have been better to discuss issues like Ukraine’s potential NATO membership or territorial losses at the negotiating table — not beforehand,” the politician from Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party said ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
Chris Lunday contributed reporting.