Merkel met Putin in Moscow today.
https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-asks-russia-to-pressure-taliban-on-evacuations/a-58915545Merkel asks Russia to pressure Taliban on evacuationsIn probably her last meeting with Vladimir Putin as German chancellor, Angela Merkel urged Russia to communicate with the Taliban the importance of evacuating civilians from Kabul.Re:Ukraine
Putin asked Merkel to work toward a peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, stressing that there was no alternative to the Minsk peace agreement.
Merkel — who is due to hold talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday — said there was a stalemate, and people continued to die.She added that she hoped for some progress to be made in the next few weeks.
Besides the armed conflict, Ukraine also opposes the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, fearing that it would affect its status as a gas transit country.
Putin said Russia was ready to send gas via Ukraine even after the end of their current deal, in 2024, but said Moscow needed to evaluate the scale of demand for its fossil fuel first.
"And for this, we need to get an answer from our European partners on how much they are ready to buy," he said. "We cannot sign a transit contract if we don't have supply contracts with our consumers in Europe."
In Russia, there is a joke, that Merkel will follow Gerhard Schröder's path who "fixed" Nord Stream 1 just before leaving the office, getting job there thereafter. Biden-Merkel deal has very strange timing, indeed.
