The News
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in nearly two years, discussing the war in Ukraine for an hour.
Scholz condemned the war and called on Russia to withdraw its troops. He also stressed that support for Ukraine will endure, suggesting that time is not on the Kremlin’s side, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.
Putin said that a potential deal would have to take Russia’s security interests into account, be “based on new territorial realities,” and “eliminate the root causes of the conflict,” according to a Kremlin statement.
Scholz said that he had received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s blessing to speak with Putin, although Reuters reported that Zelenskyy had cautioned Scholz against speaking to Putin, saying that such a conversation would lessen the Russian leader’s sense of isolation.
The call comes as the incoming Trump administration has made clear they will push for talks with Russia to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. Some European officials are also mulling a potential land-for-peace deal, The Washington Post reported, as Ukraine continues to struggle on the front lines, and amid growing fears of the US cutting its Ukraine aid.