BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s president would have liked to visit Ukraine and the fact that he was not received there was “irritating”, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told RBB public radio, adding that he had no immediate plans himself to visit Kyiv.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, long a proponent of reconciliation with Russia, said on Tuesday Kyiv did not want him to visit. A Ukrainian official subsequently denied that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had rejected a visit offer from Steinmeier.
“The president would have liked to go to Ukraine and would have visited the president,” Scholz said. “It would have been good to receive him. I don’t want to comment further. It is a little irritating, to be polite about it.”
Asked if he himself planned a visit to Kyiv, Scholz said he was in more regular contact with Zelenskiy than almost any other Western politician.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Paul Carrel)
