stern magazine exclusive: Henry Kissinger argues against a coup against Putin: “It is likely that a peace agreement will have to be made with Putin” – but the West should not “tolerate” a Russian nuclear threat

Former US-Secretary Henry Kissinger advocated in an interview with stern magazine for continuing the dialogue with Russa and with President Wladimir Putin. Kissinger said: “The war will end someday. After the war the relationship of Ukraine to Russia will have to be redefined. The relationship of Europe to Russia will also have to be redefined at the end of the war because Russia will continue to play an important factor in international relations. But if Russia were to dissolve as a result of the war, the chaos that would exist in Central Asia and in the Middle East would be another disturbing element.”

Answering the question if peace will only be possible after Putin has been removed, he said: “It’s likely that the agreement will have to be made with Putin. If Putin were to be overthrown, it would certainly ease the negotiations. But when all the other objectives are achieved and you continue the war for the purpose of overthrowing Putin, that would in my opinion not have public support no matter how unpopular Putin is at the moment.”

Kissinger said furthermore: “It is a very fragile situation when two nuclear powers are contesting over a non-nuclear power’s territory. With the respect of the use of the threat of nuclear weapons by Russia we cannot possibly yield to that. For two reasons. First, the irony of the historic evolution since World War 2 is that enormous sums were spent on nuclear weapons, they have been refined many times, and yet no country has been willing to use them because they didn’t know how to control the consequences. So, if Putin, if Russia crossed that line, that has to be rebuffed. It can’t be tolerated that a settlement is made under a nuclear threat because it would change the world.

You can find the full interview here: https://ots.de/v85nAa

Interview was conducted by: Gregor Peter Schmitz, Jan Christoph Wiechmann

Contact: Oliver Creutz creutz.oliver@stern.de +49 40 3703 7248 or fuchs.cornelia@stern.de +49 151 64955043

SOURCE: Gruner+Jahr, STERN