MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th July, 2021) German Chancellor Angela Merkel held dozens of phone negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, with the leaders speaking straightforwardly and sometimes even raising their voices, according to a new biography of the German leader published by Ralph Bollmann.
On July 15, German historian and journalist Ralph Bollmann published an 800-page book entitled "Angela Merkel:� The Chancellor and her time," covering the entire life of the "most influential female politician in the world" from her birth til early 2021, with a focus on her years in the chancellor's office and acting as European main "crisis manager." C.H.Beck, the publisher, provided a copy in German to Sputnik.
In 2014, Merkel called Putin dozens of times, with official statements made only on 27 conversations. However, the chancellor did not want to visit Moscow because she had "no chance of success and risks of being humiliated by Putin seemed too high for her."
"Phone calls of the two leaders often looked like duels and were up to the point [of being so]," the biography read.
According to employees listening to phonecalls between the two leaders, Putin talked a lot, sometimes infinitely, taking up much more than half of the time, becoming at times "emotional, passionate and even angry," the book went on. Merkel was calmer and more brief in her answers.
"Their conversations were free... In other words, they sometimes even raised voices," Bollmann writes in his book.
In her conversations with Putin, Merkel applied her experience in talks with political opponents and resorted to the tactic deployed during Eurozone crisis negotiations. Confrontation with such opponents as Roland Koh and Silvio Berlusconi prepared her for a standoff with Putin, the biographer says.
In April 2014, Kiev launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk after they refused to recognize the new central authorities, which came to power after what Donbas deems a coup. In March 2014, Crimea rejoined Russia after nearly 97% of voters supported the move in a referendum.
