The President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev urged visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday (16 September) to give up on the idea that Russia can be defeated on the battlefield and to support China’s peace plan for Ukraine, a suggestion Scholz rejected.
Scholz is on his first official tour of Central Asia as Berlin looks for new sources of energy and minerals in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Kazakhstan remains a close ally of its former Soviet overlord Russia, though the Astana government has not taken sides in the conflict or supported Moscow’s claims to some Ukrainian territories.
“It is a fact that Russia cannot be defeated in the military sense,” Tokayev told Scholz in Astana.
“A further escalation of war will lead to irreparable consequences for the whole of humanity and above all for the countries involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” he added.
Scholz diplomatically disagreed, saying Germany was supporting Ukraine because Russia had invaded it.
Strategy might not be to occupy Russia, but keep Ukraine afloat long enough that the Russian invasion crumbles by economic means.