On May 2, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks, political scientist Petr Oleschuk wrote on the NW portal.

This is a continuation of the tradition of attempts at a kind of shuttle diplomacy on the part of Merkel. Despite all the previous failures, as the Chancellor was one of the initiators of the Minsk process, which was supposed to ensure a diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, she does not give up attempts to achieve some progress on this issue. In addition, there remain other problems in the relations between the countries of the European Union and Russia, related both to the continuation of the war in Syria and to a variety of intra-European problems.

I think the main purpose of the visit is to get acquainted with the positions that Germany and Russia have on certain issues and to determine whether there has been any progress there.

Putin's current statements indicate that he does not want to give up anything and is not ready to go to any peace initiatives or to weaken this situation. He seems to say that they will stand in all directions until the last. In fact, this is the main result of this visit: he showed that at this stage Russia is not ready for any full-fledged peace talks and settlement.

While all evidence of the inability to change the current situation. Some negotiations with Putin, persuasion, no one has achieved anything, and he does not demonstrate readiness for any negotiations. Also, the upcoming presidential elections in Russia. In fact, Putin has indicated that, at least for another year, he does not intend to change anything and will continue the existing policy.

This applies not only to the conflict in the east of Ukraine, but also to Syria. In addition, Merkel noted that Putin should pay attention to the persecution of homosexuals in Chechnya, but this issue is not particularly strategic for Russia, it remains an element of overall positioning.

As a result, the visit testified that from the diplomatic point of view, three years of communication with Russia did not bring any results. The EU needs to either continue preserving the fiction for which they are holding - peace negotiations and the like - or seek alternative ways of diplomacy with Russia.