Russia cannot trust as mediators people who assert the need for Russia's strategic defeat; 'that is the problem,'" said #Russian President Vladimir #Putin regarding relations with the #EU The Russian president said he was surprised by the reaction to Schröder’s nomination as a negotiator and emphasized that Schröder is not a “friend of Putin,” but one of Germany’s finest statesmen, a person who can be trusted. It was not “malicious #Russia” that stopped supplying energy to #Europe