Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for an hour on the phone on Friday, marking an icebreaker moment between Russia and the West amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. The hour-long call was focused on how to bring an end to the war, German authorities reported.

The New York Times reports that this call may be the first communication between the Russian president and a sitting leader of a substantial Western country since 2022. Russia confirmed that Scholz placed the call to Putin.

The German government's summary of the call revealed Scholz called the Russian president to tell him that having North Korean troops fight with Russian troops against Ukraine seriously escalates the conflict and called on him to bring an abrupt end to the war. He told Putin that Germany would continue to aid Ukraine, whose president Volodymyr Zelensky he spoke with on the phone just before his call with Putin.

Scholz criticized Russia's warfare, reminding Putin that his country had not achieved any of its goals since it invaded Ukraine over 3 years ago. Putin reportedly told Scholz in response that a peace deal with Ukraine must be based on "new territorial realities and address the original causes of the conflict."

The NYT states "Despite Mr. Scholz’s apparent criticism of Russia’s war, the call suggests that contact between the Kremlin and western powers may increase, following the election last week of Donald J. Trump in the American presidential election."

The Kremlin told Russian State Media that Putin and his German counterpart had “a detailed and honest interchange of opinions about the situation in Ukraine" and that Putin blamed Scholz for "an unprecedented degradation of relations between Russia and Germany."