German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin leader’s first publicly announced conversation with the sitting head of a major Western power in nearly two years.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the German chancellor's phone call with Russia's leader on Friday opened a "Pandora's box" that undermined efforts to isolate Vladimir Putin and end the war in Ukraine with a "fair peace".

Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday for the first time in nearly two years as the German leader gears up for a snap election and Europe waits to hear Donald Trump’s plan for ending the war in Ukraine.

By Thomas Escritt and Andreas Rinke BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in their first phone call in nearly two years to pull his forces out of Ukraine and begin talks with Kyiv that would open the way for a "just and lasting peace".

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin for an hour by phone on Friday, the first conversation between the two leaders in nearly two years. Scholz warned Putin that the deployment of North Korean troops for combat in Russia or Ukraine would be a "serious escalation and expansion of the conflict,

Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke by phone for an hour Friday, marking the first communication between the two heads of state in two years. Scholz protested the involvement of North Korean troops in the war in Ukraine and called upon Putin to end the conflict,

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Russia to negotiate with Ukraine to achieve lasting peace in a conversation with Vladimir Putin. This is the first such contact between the leaders in two years.