Schröder visits Moscow branch of Russian supermarket chain Hyperglobus

Russian TV footage showed employees at a Hyperglobus branch greeting former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his wife, So-yeon Schröder-Kim, with sustained applause, according to DW. The supermarket confirmed that Schröder visited a branch on the western outskirts of Moscow on Wednesday. "I'm very pleased to be here, to see this wonderful hypermarket, to see the results of your work and to meet you, my wonderful colleagues," RBC television in Russia quoted Schröder as saying, according to DW.

Last week, Hyperglobus announced that Schröder had been appointed to the supervisory board, DW reported. The Russian supermarket chain was spun off from Germany's Globus Holding last year, according to DW. Schröder also reportedly called last week for the continuation of remaining trade ties between Russia and countries like Germany amid the sanctions imposed since the start of the war in Ukraine. "It is exactly in these crisis times that these ties are especially important: they allow us to hear each other and look for ways forward," newspaper RBK reported him as saying last Friday, according to DW.

DW reported that Schröder has current or recent links to a series of Russian businesses and to President Vladimir Putin, and that these have become increasingly contentious in Germany in recent years, particularly since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. On leaving politics, Schröder took up senior roles including on the board of the Rosneft energy giant and, before that, on the board of the Nord Stream gas pipeline project that was majority owned by Gazprom, according to DW. DW reported that in 2004, while still in office, Schröder said he believed Putin was a "flawless democrat." DW also reported that Schröder attended the 2018 swearing-in ceremony for Putin's fourth presidential term, and that the now-deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny once said Schröder was Putin's "errand boy."

According to DW, Schröder was stripped of a state-funded office and staff in 2024 on the basis that he was no longer fulfilling obligations tied to his previous role in government. DW reported that his party, the center-left Social Democrats, tried on several occasions to eject him as a member, that each attempt failed to clear the required legal bars, and that he remains a member, having joined in 1963. DW reported that Putin has often suggested Schröder as a possible peace mediator between Russia, Ukraine and Europe, and that Schröder has expressed a willingness to take on the role; DW wrote that he would likely be unacceptable as a mediator to all parties other than Russia, particularly Ukraine.