German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has spoken in favour of Russia’s participation in a new summit to resolve the crisis with Ukraine, the Russian media reported on Sunday.

Scholz also reportedly told a German public-service television broadcaster in an interview that time has come to discuss and achieve peace.

“In my view, the moment has now come to discuss how we can move from this military situation to peace faster than seems realistic at the moment,” Russian news agency TASS reported Scholz as saying in an interview with ZDF television.

It mentioned that the Chancellor claimed that a new conference would be held “in any case” to resolve the crisis which began in February 2022.

“The President [of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky] and I are of the opinion that Russia should be represented there,” Scholz told the German public-service television broadcaster.

On Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that countries like India and China can play a role in resolving the conflict in Ukraine.

Meloni’s remarks were made at the Ambrosetti Forum in northern Italy’s Cernobbio city where she also held a meeting with the visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“It is obvious that if the rules of international law are broken we will get a multiplication of chaos and crisis, but it is also obvious that with the multiplication of crisis, we will have a natural fragmentation of the geo-economic space, that is, in the long run, economic globalization and questioning of the rules of international law will not walk together. This is what I also said to my Chinese counterparts, we must choose, because the two things do not go together, it is also the reason why I think that in the end nations, like China and India, can play a role and must play a role in resolving the conflict in Ukraine,” said Meloni.

Earlier in the week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, while addressing the 9th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, mentioned India’s role in providing a “helping hand” in resolving the issue.

“We respect our friends and partners who I think are sincerely interested in addressing and resolving all the issues associated with the conflict (with Ukraine). China, Brazil, India… I am in contact with my partners and I have no doubt that the leaders of these countries, and we have the relations of trust and confidence with one another, will be really interested in providing a helping hand,” said Putin.