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Nordic leaders call Putin as local truce begins in Ukraine / Photo: © AFP/File
Nordic leaders call Putin as local truce begins in Ukraine
The leaders of Norway and Finland held a "frank and substantive" phone conversation with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the first call between pro-Ukrainian European leaders and the Russian president in more than a year.
The call came as a local truce aimed at allowing humanitarian aid into the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky -- dubbed by a Ukrainian negotiator the "biggest de-escalation since 2022" -- appeared to be tentatively holding, hours after Russia fired missiles on a university campus and a key bridge in Kyiv.
Defending the outreach to the Kremlin chief, Finland's president Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said in a joint statement that "ending the war requires direct discussions".
"We stressed the importance of de-escalation," Store said.
Stubb described the discussion between the three as "frank and substantive".
The call marked the first direct exchange between Putin and Ukraine's main European allies since French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with him in July 2025.
Putin used the opportunity to slam the West, the Kremlin said.
"Attention was drawn to the confrontational policy of the EU and NATO countries, which is leading to a protraction of hostilities", the Kremlin said in a readout.
But Moscow said the three had "agreed to continue maintaining direct contact by phone".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who spoke with the two Nordic leaders after their call with Putin, said on social media that they had "made it clear to the Russian leader that real de-escalatory steps are needed regarding our energy and infrastructure".
- Local ceasefire -
The diplomatic back-and-forth came after both sides said a ceasefire in Oleshky brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump had begun at 3:00 am local time (0100 GMT) and was in effect through the morning.
Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said it would last until 10:59 pm on November 1.
AFP was not able to immediately verify whether there had been a decrease in fighting.
The war-ravaged city in Ukraine's southern Kherson region has been caught in the middle of the fighting since 2022, when it was seized by Russian forces at the start of their invasion.
The population has since dropped from about 24,000 to around 2,000 today.
Former residents told AFP earlier this year that those remaining in the city were starving, lacked medicine and could not easily leave.
"They've forgotten what bread is," Olga, who was in touch with two families still in Oleshky, said late last month.
A spokesman for Ukraine's Marine Corps, Pavlo Drogal, told reporters that "the enemy is observing the ceasefire" as of 9:00 am local time.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said there had been no reports of violations.
- Air barrages -
But elsewhere, Russia continued to pummel the rest of Ukraine with air barrages.
Ballistic missiles struck a university campus in Kyiv on Monday evening.
Another overnight strike hit the capital's Southern Bridge -- a major road-and-rail artery crossing the Dnipro river.
Images posted on social media showed a gaping hole in between subway tracks and a mess of twisted metal.
In Russia, two people were killed "as a result of explosive devices being dropped" on the western city of Bryansk, the regional governor said.
Russian state television on Tuesday aired reports purporting to show several people leaving Oleshky on bikes, without saying when the images were filmed.
Vladimir Saldo, a Moscow-installed official in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, told Russian media that those wishing to evacuate could go to Russian-occupied Crimea or Rostov in southwestern Russia, but would need to wait until the heavily-mined road from the city had been cleared.
- Videos show destruction -
The Ukrainian military has released drone footage of the town showing rows of empty apartment blocks, some charred by fire or partially destroyed by fighting.
Other videos have shown Ukrainian authorities using drones to dispatch medicine and food to remaining residents.
The Russian military does not routinely grant international media access to areas under Russian occupation, including Oleshky.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a conflict that has spiralled into Europe's deadliest since World War II.
US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine are set to resume in November, having been effectively frozen since the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran in February.
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J.L. de Oliveira--JDB
