Finnish and Norwegian Leaders Hold Rare Joint Call With Putin on Ukraine Talks

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre held a joint phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, a rare contact between Putin and European leaders, to discuss future negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Their offices said the call, made from Helsinki, followed up last week's talks in Oslo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US special envoy Steve Witkoff. It was tied to US-mediated technical meetings in Abu Dhabi that Kyiv and Moscow agreed on Friday to hold in early November. The two leaders stressed they spoke for their own countries, not Europe as a whole. Stubb called the call frank and substantive and said ending the war requires direct discussions with Russia. Putin said afterward that confrontational EU and Nato policies were prolonging the war. Zelensky then spoke to both leaders and thanked them for their support. Overnight, Kyiv officials said, Russia hit the city's South Bridge with 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones. Zelensky called it a serious escalation against Ukrainian logistics. Attacks also caused deaths in Kharkiv and Pavlohrad.

The Guardian, on the left, runs the call as a live-blog item. It leads with the Finnish and Norwegian statements, the link to the Abu Dhabi meetings, the border-state rationale and the disclaimer about not speaking for Europe. Its headline calls the call substantive but notes significant differences remain. BBC News and Al Jazeera, in the alternative group, add Putin's criticism of EU and Nato policy and Zelensky's follow-up conversation. Al Jazeera leads with the Kyiv bridge strike, Zelensky's escalation warning, Russia's Defence Ministry account and casualties in Zaporizhzhia and Bryansk. Right-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while left-leaning and alternative outlets had.