Merz says peace talks "can never find solutions without Ukraine"

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin for about 90 minutes on Tuesday, then with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, pressing for the fighting to stop and tensions to ease, according to Reuters. The outreach broke with most Western European leaders’ refusal to deal directly with Putin and came as Europe has been largely absent from US-led peace efforts; the two leaders linked it to planned Russian-Ukrainian-US talks in Abu Dhabi next month. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, responding to the initiative, said Kyiv’s participation and a European voice were essential to any settlement, and that Germany and others were seeking a format for talks with Moscow while calling Finland and Norway constructive. The Kremlin’s account showed no softening, and several European leaders criticized the calls.