Gerhard Schroeder Putin birthday visit angers Merz

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is “deeply outraged” that former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow on the Russian president's 74th birthday, German government spokesman Steffen Meyer said Friday.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Putin had invited his “old friend” Schroeder to join him after learning that the former German leader was in Moscow.

“Putin bears sole responsibility for the war in Ukraine,” Meyer told a press conference. “His orders are the cause of the immeasurable suffering inflicted there every day -- civilian casualties, families torn apart, dead and wounded.”

Meyer said Merz considered it “downright immoral” for Schroeder to be celebrating with Putin on such a day.

Photos released by the Russian presidency showed the two men shaking hands and smiling.

Schroeder, 82, led Germany from 1998 to 2005. He has long had a close relationship with Putin and maintained Russian business ties after leaving office, including a post at gas giant Gazprom.

Criticism of Schroeder's ties with Russia intensified after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Germany stripped him of some privileges granted to former chancellors because of his closeness to Putin.

According to the Kremlin, Schroeder was in Moscow for a Russian business engagement as a newly named supervisory board member for the supermarket chain Hyperglobus.

In May, Putin suggested that European Union countries should use Schroeder as a mediator to resolve the war in Ukraine. EU governments quickly dismissed the proposal.