Since 2024, a group of former senior German politicians has been meeting with Russians close to their leader, Vladimir Putin, in Baku. The most recent meeting took place in July. Ronald Pofalla, the former head of the Federal Chancellery, and Matthias Platzeck, former minister-president, flew from Berlin to Baku on July 12 and returned two days later. On the same day, Viktor Zubkov, a businessperson and former prime minister of Russia, and Valery Fadeyev, chairman of Russia's Human Rights Council, landed in Baku from Moscow, as they had the previous year. The trip remained private until July 16.

The format they used, the "Petersburg Dialogue,” echoes the German‑Russian forum that Russian President Vladimir Putin and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder founded in 2001. Berlin shut down the dialogue after Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On July 21, at a Chancellery press conference with visiting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Deutsche Welle’s Roman Goncharenko asked Chancellor Friedrich Merz about the meeting. Merz replied that he knew nothing of such a meeting and that his government was not involved. Aliyev, standing beside him, then read out border‑service records confirming the arrivals and departures and added that neither side had notified Azerbaijan: Its territory had been used without its knowledge.

Who was in the room

The political significance of the meeting becomes clearer when considering the roles of its participants. Pofalla led Angela Merkel's Chancellery until 2013, which also put him in charge of Germany's intelligence services. Later, he co-chaired the German side of the Petersburg Dialogue. Platzeck was head of the German-Russian Forum until he resigned days after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He was also known for his call on the West to recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea under international law in 2014. Neither holds a governmental office right now.

Zubkov has led Gazprom's board since 2008, the company that supplied more than half of Germany's gas before the war, and acts as Putin's special representative to the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. Fadeyev heads the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, which protects the government rather than the people it is named for. Both Russians are still in office.

Media on Baku channel

Media and official reactions in Germany, Russia and Ukraine do not treat the Baku channel as a neutral diplomatic experiment but instead frame it as either a problematic influence tool, a contested private initiative or a largely irrelevant sideshow.

In Germany, coverage presented the meetings as a security problem. Die Zeit and ARD’s Kontraste, which broke the story, reported that German security agencies classify the channel as a Russian influence operation and quoted experts who see the Russian participants as part of a propaganda apparatus rather than a negotiation team.

Russian media offered little detail, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying he knew nothing of the talks, while other outlets cited sources claiming Berlin is aware of the channel but chooses to ignore it; commentators such as Alexander Rar instead cast the gathering as a private meeting of old acquaintances and accused the German press of blocking any chance for negotiation.

Kyiv’s response was openly dismissive. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told journalists that the meeting was "as secret as it is unimportant,” that Ukraine had authorized none of the participants to represent it, and that the significance of such contacts for a real peace process was "close to zero.”

Against this mix of suspicion, contestation and dismissal, Merz has tried to draw a clear boundary between unofficial initiatives and the government’s declared Ukraine policy.

Merz’s line

Merz’s denial has a defensible internal logic. His insistence that the federal government was not involved is meant to signal to Kyiv and other partners that Germany is not running an unofficial negotiation track alongside its declared Ukraine policy. From the chancellery’s perspective, distancing the cabinet from former officials preserves the line that diplomacy on Ukraine runs through formal channels.

The July 21 press conference in Berlin undermined that message. However, the chancellor's public disclosure of confirmed details about a politically sensitive meeting with a visiting head of state fails to demonstrate executive control. While Merz may contend that he neither authorized nor encouraged the Baku contacts, the continued operation of such networks and the fact that the Azerbaijani president disclosed them reinforce the perception that Germany, under his leadership, remains affected by informal Russian channels that it neither fully manages nor eliminates.

Why Baku was chosen

The choice of Baku as a venue reflects practical and political constraints. Sanctioned Russian participants cannot easily travel to the EU; therefore, Berlin or any other European city would be a highly visible and contentious setting in wartime. However, Azerbaijan is directly accessible to both delegations.

According to sources close to the Azerbaijani government, the talks were a strictly private initiative without official facilitation. However, Aliyev’s decision to order a border check and publicly read out flight data in Berlin signaled that Baku expects to be informed when its territory is used for politically sensitive contacts.

This incident unfolded while Aliyev was in Berlin to sign a cooperation declaration and discuss diversifying German gas supplies through Azerbaijan, at a time when Baku also seeks to stabilize relations with Moscow.

Legacy of Ostpolitik

The Baku affair exposes how Germany’s tradition of back‑channel diplomacy, rooted in former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik and later dialogue formats with Moscow, still shapes its Russia policy even after the full‑scale invasion of Ukraine. What was once framed as peace‑oriented engagement can now look like an evasion of the new reality created by Russian aggression, especially when unofficial contacts bypass Kyiv and formal EU lines.

Seen in this light, the Baku meeting can be read as evidence that informal elite networks between Germany and Russia still play a role, but may now carry higher political costs when they are perceived to weaken support for Ukraine or a rules‑based foreign policy. Aliyev’s public confirmation likewise suggests that future German-Russian policy is likely to be assessed not only on formal decisions, but also on how transparently it manages such legacy channels and whether it brings them under clear democratic oversight instead of tolerating parallel, unofficial diplomacy.