Russia's President Vladimir Putin (archive image)
Photo: AFP
In a telephone conversation with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, Chancellor Angela Merkel called for the increased Russian military presence in the vicinity of eastern Ukraine to be dismantled.
The aim is to de-escalate the situation, said the deputy government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer after the conversation.
The Kremlin declared that Merkel and Putin had called on the parties to the conflict to exercise restraint.
The negotiations must be stepped up so that the peace plan agreed in 2015 "as the undisputed basis" for an end to the conflict can be fully implemented.
After reports of Russian and Ukrainian troops marching along the conflict area and violations of a ceasefire, international concerns have been growing for days that the conflict, which has been going on for seven years, is escalating again.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived on the front line for a visit.
Zelenskyi wrote in advance on Twitter that he wanted to be at the site of the "escalation" with the soldiers.
Putin now used the call with Merkel to raise serious allegations against Ukraine.
The neighboring country is responsible for provocations in eastern Ukraine, which are fueling the situation there.
According to the Kremlin, Putin spoke of "provocative actions" by Ukraine, which had recently exacerbated the situation along the front.
The government in Kiev must "strictly adhere to" the agreements made previously.
This includes a direct dialogue with the separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and an autonomous status for the region.
However, both are rejected by the Ukrainian side.
According to the Kremlin, Merkel and Putin called for “restraint and activation of the negotiation process”.
The peace talks between Ukraine and Russia with Franco-German participation are currently stalled.
The last summit in the so-called Normandy format took place in December 2019, and there has been no concrete political progress since then.
Navalny was also a topic of conversation
Another point of conversation between Merkel and Putin: the case of the imprisoned Russian opposition politician Alexej Navalny.
Navalny is one of the most prominent critics of the Russian president.
He survived a poison attack in Russia in 2020 and received medical treatment in Germany.
Upon returning to his home country in January, he was arrested and sentenced to more than two and a half years in prison.
The human rights organization Amnesty International recently sharply criticized the Kremlin critic's detention conditions.
"Russia, the Russian authorities, may be putting him in a slow death situation and trying to hide what is happening to him," Amnesty International's general secretary Agnes Callamard told Reuters on Wednesday.
mrc / asa / dpa / Reuters
