OSLO (Reuters) – Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere had an hour-long conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in which the two discussed the invasion of Ukraine, the Norwegian prime minister’s office said in a statement.
“I asked the president urgently to end the war in Ukraine, pull out Russian troops and secure humanitarian access,” Stoere said.
“We have very limited expectations of what could be achieved, but nothing should be left untried in the situation we are now in,” he said.
The phone call came about at Norway’s initiative after Stoere first discussed it with allies in Europe and the United States, his office said.
Norway, a NATO member, shares a border with Russia in the Arctic.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” its neighbour. Kyiv and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche)
