German legislator's concealed meeting with Putin confidants sparks security concerns
Ralf Stegner, a member of the Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Committee, was among politicians from the SPD and Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives who took part in the April meeting in Baku.
Among those they met on April 13 in the Azerbaijan capital was former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Subkov, head of Gazprom's supervisory board, and Valery Fadeyev, EU-sanctioned chair of Russia's human rights council.
On both sides, the participants were former members of the Petersburger Dialogue, a forum founded in 2001 by Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The forum was officially disbanded in 2021 after Russia's crackdown on several participating civil society organisations.
Four German participants - Stegner, Ronald Pofalla - who once led former Chancellor Angela Merkel's office - and two former regional ministers - confirmed in a statement to Reuters that they had been at a "private" event in Baku.
"Talking even in difficult times of growing tension is a fundamental principle of good foreign policy," they wrote, adding that the "confidential" meeting was not secret, and none of them had a public mandate to be there or had been paid for their presence.
The meeting, first reported by ARD public television and newspaper Die Zeit, took place at a time when Russia's ties with the EU are in a deep freeze over its invasion of Ukraine. The timing raised questions over the apparent willingness of some politicians to seek rapprochement even as Moscow wages war on a German ally.
In Stegner's case, critics also raised security concerns: Members of the parliamentary control committee have privileged, confidential access to the work of Germany's foreign and domestic security services, both of them heavily involved in gathering intelligence relating to Russia and the war.
"This is a quite impossible and irritating development that must immediately be cleared up," Konstantin von Notz, the Green chair of the committee, told Der Spiegel.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a conservative member of the committee, said Stegner should explain himself, while liberal European legislator Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said Stegner should not be nominated for a new term on the committee.
"People in such a key role have to be above all suspicion," she told Funke newspapers. "That is not the case for him."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
34 minutes ago
- Reuters
Oil climbs on EU trade deal, potential US-China tariff truce extension
July 29 (Reuters) - Oil extended gains on Tuesday, lifted by hopes of improved economic activity after the U.S.-EU trade deal, a potential U.S.-China tariff truce and President Donald Trump's shorter deadline for Russia to end the Ukraine war. Brent crude futures were up 24 cents, or 0.34%, to $70.28 a barrel by 0000 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $66.93 a barrel, up 22 cents, or 0.33%. Both contracts settled more than 2% higher in the previous session, and Brent touched its highest level since July 18 on Monday. The trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, while imposing a 15% import tariff on most EU goods, sidestepped a full-blown trade war between the two major allies that would have rippled across nearly a third of global trade and dimmed the outlook for fuel demand. Oil prices were also supported by news of a possible extension of the trade truce between the U.S. and China, with top economic officials from both countries having met in Stockholm on Monday for more than five hours of talks. The discussions are expected to resume on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Trump set a new deadline on Monday of "10 or 12 days" for Russia to make progress toward ending the war in Ukraine or face sanctions. Trump has threatened sanctions on both Russia and buyers of its exports unless progress is made. "Trump's comments reignited fears that Russia's oil flows would be impacted," ANZ senior commodity strategist Daniel Hynes wrote in a note. "This also comes on the back of the latest sanctions package by the EU against Russia, including a lower price cap on the country's crude and the import of refined products made from Moscow's oil in other countries," Hynes added.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Russia's Roscosmos, NASA to hold first in-person talks at heads level since 2018, Russia says
July 29 (Reuters) - The head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, has arrived in Houston for talks with the interim head of NASA, Sean Duffy - the first in-person meeting at the agencies' heads level since 2018, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday. Talks between Bakanov, the head of Roscosmos since February, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy, whom President Donald Trump named as NASA's interim head earlier this month, are scheduled for July 31, Russia's TASS state news agency reported. "The parties plan to discuss ongoing joint projects," TASS reported, citing a Roscosmos statement. The space program is one of the few international projects on which the United States and Russia still cooperate closely. Relations in other areas between the two countries have broken down since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. "We plan to discuss the continuation of the cross-flight program, the extension of the International Space Station's operational life, and the work of the Russia-U.S. joint task force on the future safe deorbiting and controlled ocean disposal of the ISS," TASS cited Bakanov as saying in the Roscosmos statement. Bakanov met with NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations Ken Bowersox in April at the Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, according to TASS. But the last meeting between the heads of Roscosmos and NASA took place in October 2018, when Dmitry Rogozin, then director general of Roscosmos, met NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in person also at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, according to Russian media. Bakanov, together with NASA officials, will visit divisions of the Johnson Space Center and Boeing's (BA.N), opens new tab production facility for talks with the company's space program leadership, RIA agency reported. On the eve of the launch of NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 flight, scheduled for July 31, Bakanov will meet with the crew of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which includes Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, RIA reported. In the early days after Trump's return to office in January, Russia and the U.S. moved closer to restore relations, but the U.S. president has since grown impatient with Moscow, giving Russia on Monday 10-12 days to make progress toward ending the war in Ukraine.
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Telegraph
Vladimir Putin has finally run out of time
President Donald Trump has issued a new ultimatum to Russia. After expressing doubts about Vladimir Putin's willingness to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine, Trump announced that he would cut his 50-day time deadline to just 10 to 12 days. If Russia does not pivot towards peace, punitive secondary tariffs and sanctions could take effect. A bold move, but is Putin likely to accede to Trump's demands? Russia's most recent conduct suggests no. On Saturday, it declared that it had occupied two villages in the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk. Hours before Trump's statement, Russia launched a drone and missile barrage against Ukraine that forced Poland to scramble fighter jets over its airspace. Russian official rhetoric has been equally bellicose. In response to Trump's statement, former president Dmitry Medvedev warned that the US was taking a step towards war with Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has declared that 'Russia is fighting alone against the entire West'. No new peace negotiations with Ukraine have been scheduled and the most recent talks in Istanbul lasted less than an hour. But Putin's determination to call Trump's bluff is a dangerous miscalculation. He appears to have predicted that Trump would withdraw military support for Ukraine upon taking office and hand Russia a blank cheque for further aggression, but these assumptions were mistaken. Trump has now earmarked Russia as the sole obstruction to peace in Ukraine and is devising a robust deterrence policy. Much like his predecessor Joe Biden, Trump has supported the provision of American military equipment to Ukraine. The key distinction is that these arms will be purchased by America's Nato allies. Due to reforms to its debt brake spending cap, Germany is slated to purchase billions of dollars of US-made weapons for Ukraine. Norway has doubled its aid pledge to Ukraine and has promised a Patriot air defence system to Kyiv. Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte says that Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Britain, the Netherlands and Canada are also willing to purchase US-made weapons for Ukraine. Trump has paired this policy with fervent support for Europe's own rearmament. During his press conference at last month's Nato summit in The Hague, Trump hailed the alliance's decision to increase its defence spending target to 5 per cent of GDP as a 'big win' for Western civilisation. Trump's new trade deal with the European Union (EU) commits the bloc to buying billions of dollars in new military equipment. Once again, Russian aggression aimed at thwarting Nato has unintentionally resulted in the alliance's strengthening. Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea triggered a sustained military build-up on Nato's eastern flank and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine encouraged neutral Finland and Sweden to join the alliance. Trump's rhetoric and actions are taking this trend to new heights. The intensification of US economic pressure on Russia would also have severe adverse consequences for Putin's war machine. While the EU has taken action against Russia's shadow oil tanker fleet and Chinese banks that enable the war effort, these sanctions have lagged Russia's efforts to get around them. If the US imposes sweeping secondary tariffs on all customers of Russia's energy industry and closes sectoral sanction loopholes, the macroeconomic shock is likely to be potent. Even though the Russian central bank recently slashed interest rates from 20 to 18 per cent, it warned that 'pro-inflationary risks prevail over disinflationary ones in the mid-term time horizon'. While Russia's unemployment rate is officially reported to stand at a record-low 2.4 per cent, conscription-induced labour market shortages abound, and wage growth continues to lag trends from 2024. These indicators suggest that an economic downturn in Russia is imminent. At the June 2025 St Petersburg Economic Forum, Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov warned that 'we're basically already on the brink of falling into a recession'. New tariffs and sanctions increase the likelihood of Reshetnikov's doomsday predictions coming true and are likely to sharpen discord between Russia's main organs of economic policy decision-making. Trump has lost patience with Russia's stalling tactics and obstructionism. The consequences of this change of heart could ensure Putin regrets playing Trump.
