A report on the visit of the German “peace delegation” to Moscow, focusing on the symposium at the Europe Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was posted on the World News Monitor (WNM). Interventions by participants on both sides centered on the new framework for world peace and cooperation offered by the BRICS.

“Victoria Panova, head of the BRICS Expert Council for Russia, emphasized the value of the BRICS philosophy: a culture of dialogue based on respect for sovereignty and recognition of the diversity of national interests,” the WNM report says. “In her view, the multipolar model embodied by the BRICS is better suited to the needs of today’s world than the approaches prevailing in the United States and the European Union.”

This is followed by a long comment by Rainer Braun, member of the board of the Berlin-based International Peace Bureau (IPB). “Among other things,” he wrote, “the following were considered essential for a new peace process: Talks and dialogue without preconditions; Overcoming the current refusals that fuel escalation; A ceasefire; The resumption of economic and scientific relations; ‘Sustainable deterrence,’ such as arms control and military restraint, particularly in critical regions like Kaliningrad.”

Braun added: “The German participants emphasized that reviving the dialogue requires rejecting the ‘image of Russia as the enemy’ and the unsubstantiated claim of a Russian attack against NATO. The general consensus was simply: Merz must call Putin!”

His comment ends with a list of recent and forthcoming steps in the right direction, which seem to have been taken from the editorial of the last issue of the EIR Strategic Alert:

• The phone calls between the presidents of Finland and Norway and Putin