(Reuters) -German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday that the United States should not to be misled by any “stalling tactics” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“At the upcoming meeting of NATO foreign ministers, we will make it clear to the American side that we should not engage with Putin’s stalling tactics,” she said in a statement after arriving in Kyiv for a visit.
NATO foreign ministers are due to meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia and the United States were working on ideas for a possible peace settlement in Ukraine and on building bilateral ties, even as President Donald Trump said he was “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin.
Baerbock, part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s outgoing German government, said it was crucial to back Ukraine unconditionally because talks between Russia and the United States were at a “deadlock.”
“There will only be real and lasting peace when the Russian president realises that he cannot win this war, that his destruction is not successful,” she said at a news conference on Tuesday, adding that Ukraine had to “conduct the peace negotiations from a position of strength”.
Asked about a potential minerals agreement between Ukraine and the U.S., Baerbock said Europe already had a deal on rare earth metals with Ukraine and that any new agreement should be compatible with EU law.
“After all, this is our European continent,” Baerbock said.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Editing by Friederike Heine and Bernadette Baum)
