The phone call between President Putin and Chancellor Scholz was proposed by Berlin, according to TASS.
According to Politico, during the conversation, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war with Ukraine and withdraw troops.
German media said the phone conversation lasted about an hour and was the first face-to-face exchange between the two leaders in nearly two years.
“The Federal Chancellor calls on Russia to be ready to negotiate with Ukraine in order to achieve a just and lasting peace,” a German government spokesman said. The spokesman added that Chancellor Scholz had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before the phone call with the Russian leader and was expected to have further discussions with Zelensky after the call with Putin.
A German government official revealed that Mr. Scholz and Mr. Putin agreed to stay in touch, revealing that Mr. Scholz "stressed that the deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia to carry out combat missions against Ukraine is associated with a serious escalation and expansion of the conflict."
Mr Scholz and Mr Putin's last conversation took place in December 2022, nearly a year after the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out.
In recent months, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pushed for a second peace conference in Ukraine that would include Russia. The original peace summit, which did not include Russia, was held in Switzerland in June.
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said on November 15 that Russia is ready to participate in negotiations on the issue if US President-elect Donald Trump initiates it, Reuters reported.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to Brazil this weekend to attend the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro and is expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the conference.
