The German news agency DPA is reporting that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a one-hour call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first such conversation in two years

In the first phone call between the leaders in nearly two years, Scholz called on Putin to end the war and pull Russian troops out of Ukraine. The Kremlin described the conversation as "a detailed and frank exchange of opinions on the situation in Ukraine”,

Ukraine blasted Olaf Scholz’s telephone diplomacy with Vladimir Putin, as many of Kyiv’s allies took a dim view of the German chancellor’s phone call with the Russian president.