France, Germany call for ‘diplomatic solution’ in Ukraine during call with Putin
The leaders of France and Germany pleaded with Russia’s Vladimir Putin for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine Saturday during an 80-minute phone call — even as Russian forces continued their creeping gains in the eastern part of the invaded nation.
President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz pushed Putin to begin “serious direct negotiations” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling for “a diplomatic solution to the conflict,” the German government said.
But in response, Putin defiantly decried the West’s “dangerous” efforts to supply Ukraine with arms and military equipment, the Kremlin said — warning that the continued support risks “aggravation of the humanitarian crisis.”
The two asked for the release of the 2,500 prisoners of war captured by Russian forces in Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, and for an end to Putin’s blockade of Odessa — a key port in the global food supply chain that normally handles millions of tons of grain a year.
He also blamed the “frozen” peace negotiations — stalled since March 28 — on Kyiv, claiming “the openness of the Russian side to the resumption of dialogue.”
And he agreed to consider freeing Ukrainian grain for export — but only if the West lifts sanctions aimed at Russian agricultural products.
Meanwhile, the Russian president moved to expand his armed forces, as he signed new legislation to eliminate the upper age limit on his army’s military recruits.
The new law, passed on Wednesday by the Duma, will allow Russian citizens over age 40 to enlist — and will lift restrictions that had limited the Kremlin’s hiring of foreign mercenary fighters.
Zelensky spoke by phone Saturday with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson about increasing concerns that the war will have a devastating impact on worldwide food supplies.
“We must work together to prevent a food crisis and unblock [Ukrainian] ports,” Zelensky said in a tweet about their conversation.
Some 22 million tons of grain are bottled up in Ukraine as Russia continues its blockade of Odessa and other ports, Zelensky told an online forum Friday.
In other developments:
- At least one civilian was killed and seven wounded in the southern town of Mykolaiv after Russian forces shelled a residential area just steps from a kindergarten, Zelensky said.
- A Russian ship arrived in the bombed-out port city of Mariupol — the first commercial activity there since Russia declared victory last week — and began loading a cargo of 2,700 tons of metal, state news agency TASS reported. Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova condemned the action, calling it “looting in the temporarily occupied territories.”
- A Ukrainian court convicted a man of treason for giving Russian troops details about Ukrainian military outposts in Kharkiv, the BBC reported, and sentenced him to a 15-year prison term.
Fighting continued throughout the Donbas, where Russia claimed victory over Lyman, a small city in the eastern region of Donetsk that could provide a key railway hub for Putin’s invading forces.
Ukraine maintained that the city of Severodonetsk, the administrative capital of the Luhansk region, was “not cut off,” despite Russian forces’ continuing efforts to encircle it.
“Ukraine will take everything back,” Zelensky promised during his nightly address to the nation Saturday.
“It’s just a matter of time,” he said. “Every day we are bringing closer the time when our army will surpass the occupiers technologically and by firepower.”
But he conceded that “the situation” in the Donbas is “very complicated.”
The US Department of Defense said Russia continues to make “incremental gains” in Donbas – where Putin turned his attention after his original invasion plans to overrun Kyiv and install a pro-Russian government were stymied.
