A former Austrian chancellor and ex-prime ministers of Italy and Finland were among the officials who quit their positions on the boards of leading Russian companies on Thursday in protest over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But Germany’s former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was not among them.
Mr. Schröder, a friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, is a familiar face on the boards of some prominent companies, including Rosneft, the Russian oil giant. He is chairman of the shareholders committee of Nord Stream 2, the company that owns the new Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline that Berlin said this week it would stop.
He has also been invited to sit on the board of Gazprom, the Russian gas behemoth that is the parent company of Nord Stream 2.
Mr. Schröder, 77, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, on Thursday called for an end to the war, writing in a post on his LinkedIn account.
But in contrast to the chorus of harsh rebukes of Russia’s attack from European leaders, Mr. Schröder stressed the “missed opportunities between the West and Russia,” as well as the “many mistakes — on both sides.”
He said that “Russia’s security interests do not justify the use of military means,” but cautioned European leaders against taking actions that “cut the remaining political, economic and civil society ties that exist between Europe and Russia.”
Others tied to Russian boardrooms felt compelled to step down after the invasion. Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister of Italy, resigned from board of Delimobil, a Russian car-sharing service, his party said. Finland’s former prime minister, Esko Aho, told local media he had withdrawn from the board of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank.
A former Austrian chancellor, Christian Kern, who led the Austrian railway company ÖBB, resigned from the board of Russia’s state-owned railway company, RZD, saying he did not want to be a part of the war.
“Since last night, RZD is part of the logistics of war,” he told the Austrian newspaper, Der Standard. “I deeply regret this.”
But another ex-chancellor of Austria, Wolfgang Schüssel, appeared unmoved by the attack, saying he saw no reason to quit his position on the board of the Lukoil, a Russian multinational company. And Karin Kneissl, the country’s former foreign minister whose wedding party Mr. Putin crashed in 2018, also still sits on the board of Rosneft.
But as images of Ukrainians fleeing the capital Kyiv ran all day on German screens Thursday, calls for Mr. Schröder to sever his ties with Russia intensified.
“This blatant purchase of a German ex-head of government by Putin can hardly be surpassed in terms of ignominy,” Christian Bangel wrote in an editorial in the German weekly, Die Zeit. “It damages not only Schröder himself, but also the office of chancellor.”
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