When the Berlin-Baku flight landed in the Azerbaijani capital on July 12, among the passengers were two people whose names had made headlines in leading publications just a few years ago. Today, Georgy Tikhiy, spokesperson for Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, characterized their meeting in a single sentence.
"A meeting as secret as it is unimportant. Some people whose names are already practically unsearchable on Google meet and talk about something. The Ukrainian side did not authorize any of them for anything."
Georgy Tikhiy, spokesperson for Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Who sat at the table
According to Bloomberg and publications Die Zeit and ARD Kontraste, the unofficial German delegation consisted of Ronald Pofalla — former head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's office — and Matthias Platzeck, former prime minister of the federal state of Brandenburg. Also present was Tim Guldimann, former Swiss ambassador to Germany. On the Russian side — Valery Fadeyev, head of the Council under the RF President for Civil Society, and Viktor Zubkov, former deputy prime minister and current chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom. The presence of a current representative of the Kremlin's gas monopoly in informal "peace" negotiations is a detail that public comments omit.
Azerbaijan learned from the news
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev confirmed the meeting but emphasized that his country had been used as a venue without any prior warning. According to Aliyev, the Azerbaijani side checked the border service data — it matched the names that appeared in media publications. Zubkov and Fadeyev flew in from Moscow on the same day, July 12. At the same time, Aliyev added that if the meeting can indeed help end the war, Baku welcomes it.
Fifth meeting — zero public results
According to The Times, the meeting in Baku was at least the fifth since 2022: similar meetings have already taken place in hotels in Baku and Abu Dhabi. None of them had a published final document, communiqué, or even a joint statement from participants. Chancellor Friedrich Merz distanced himself from the negotiations at a press conference: the German government has no connection to the meeting.
- Format: unofficial, without a state mandate from either side
- Implementation mechanism: absent — there is neither a document nor an authorized party
- Kyiv's position: participants have no authority from Ukraine
- Berlin's position: Merz's government is officially not involved
- Baku's position: the territory was used without the knowledge of authorities
Unofficial diplomacy exists as a tool — it allows governments to exchange signals without official commitments. But after five rounds in four years, the question is no longer whether such meetings should take place. The question is different: if the sixth round again has neither a mandate from Kyiv nor a public result — is there any point in calling this diplomacy rather than ritual?
