HELSINKI. Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store held a rare direct telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in an effort to open a channel towards ending the war in Ukraine.
The two leaders initiated the roughly 90-minute call from Helsinki and described it as “frank and substantive”. Stubb’s office said it focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine and diplomatic efforts to end it. Stubb said ending the war requires direct discussions, while Store pointed to the conflict’s enormous human and material costs and said both had stressed de-escalation.
Afterwards they briefed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the call had been coordinated with Kyiv and was the right approach.
The Kremlin played down the exchange, saying lasting peace was possible only if Russia’s interests were fully taken into account, and criticising what it called the confrontational policies of EU and NATO countries. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested European governments were chiefly seeking a role in future negotiations.
The call came as Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones at Kyiv overnight, hitting the city’s South Bridge. Kyiv and Moscow have agreed to US-mediated technical talks in Abu Dhabi in early November.
— LRTVS News Desk
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