“The matter is completely closed for us,” envoy Andriy Melnyk told dpa.

“For Ukraine, further talks with Schröder don’t make sense. It is of course sad to observe that the whole thing has gone sideways,” he said.

Schröder travelled from Istanbul to Moscow last Wednesday, where according to dpa sources he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Schröder has had a longtime friendship with Putin, who ordered Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine some three weeks ago.

Schröder’s connections to the Kremlin and senior posts in Russian businesses – including the Nord Stream pipelines – have put him at odds with his Social Democratic party back home as well as bringing about the departure of some members of his office staff.

Melnyk repeated that the mediation efforts were taken at Schröder’s own initiative and were not at the request of Ukraine.

“There was still a certain hope for results, otherwise no one in Ukraine would have been ready to listen to him,” he said.

On Sunday afternoon a Ukrainian representative was was personally informed of the status of talks in Moscow by Schröder, Melnyk said.

“But the results were completely useless. Nothing new was reported that we didn’t already know from our own talks with the Russian side,” he said.

“It’s a shame that this opportunity was wasted,” Melnyk said, referring to the situation as a “tragedy.” He had earlier made similar comments to the Bild newspaper.