The leaders of Finland and Norway made a rare phone call to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Tuesday as part of the ongoing efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
As President Trump has tilted more toward Russia in recent days, casting doubt on Ukraine’s president and agreeing to buy diesel from Russia, European leaders have tried to step into the peace process to assure European interests are taken into account and protect Ukraine from being steamrolled.
According to the Norwegian government, the purpose of the call was “to convey messages directly to President Putin regarding future negotiations to help to end the war.” The call was supposed to last 20 minutes but ran for 90 and was an extension of a high-level meeting last week in Oslo. More meetings on the Ukraine war are scheduled next month in Abu Dhabi.
But not all European leaders were happy about the phone call. It immediately reopened a sore subject: Who should be the one to talk to Mr. Putin?
“I am very skeptical about this Norwegian and Finnish initiative,” said Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister. “It is not coordinated with the rest of us.”
She said that she couldn’t see “any signs that Russia wants peace” and that “we should keep Europe together instead of going solo.”
Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, piled onto the criticism.
“Holding talks that risk dividing a united European voice is risky,” he said.
He added, “I’m not saying they have done that at all. I don’t yet know what those talks were about.”
Europe has been flailing to find a way into the Ukraine peace process. The war has been grinding on for almost five years, costing hundreds of thousands of lives. And the consensus is growing that Mr. Trump is too pro-Russian and not a reliable mediator to bring it to a just end.
Mr. Trump recently insisted that Ukraine “get a new president” and he continues to shift his position in favor of Russia. Earlier this month, he opened the doors for the United States to buy billions of dollars of Russian diesel, which European countries and Ukraine especially saw as a boost for the Russian war machine. Mr. Trump also recently used a crude word to refer to Norway, one of the most developed nations on the planet.
While Mr. Putin clearly benefits from all this, the Russians are increasingly aware that they need to negotiate with Europe as well. In Moscow’s view, the unwavering support — financial, diplomatic and military — that Europe has given Ukraine has enabled Kyiv to withstand pressure from the United States to make certain compromises in a peace deal.
Kremlin officials recently said that it would be good if Europe could appoint a single negotiator. For months now, European leaders have struggled to do that.
Many of the issues on the table are directly related to the European Union, like the rounds of economic sanctions that Europe has imposed on Russia and the billions of dollars of Russian state assets frozen in Belgium.
Last week, Oslo hosted a meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky; Jonas Gahr Store, Norway’s prime minister; Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president; and representatives of the Trump administration. A European Union official also attended.
Paula Pinho, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said “negotiations are happening in different formats, different places and different levels” and that the phone call between Mr. Store, Mr. Stubb and Mr. Putin was a “follow-up” to the meeting in Oslo. While Finland is part of the European Union, Norway is not.
It’s not clear if the Trump administration had encouraged the call. Mr. Stubb is considered one of the last European leaders to enjoy cordial relations with Mr. Trump — they’ve golfed together and Mr. Trump has said they’ve been friends for a long time.
Analysts believe Mr. Stubb could be an important asset if Europe and the United States ever coordinate their approaches to Ukraine. Top Russian officials have criticized Mr. Stubb, in particular over his support for Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. But a person familiar with Mr. Putin’s thinking said the Russian leader would likely accept the Finnish president as Europe’s designated interlocutor.
Mr. Store, Norway’s prime minister, said that much of what Mr. Putin conveyed on the call was “familiar.”
“He goes through how he sees this conflict as having developed since 2014. And then we state our positions,” he said. “He presents his views, we present ours.”
Henrik Pryser Libell contributed from Oslo and Christina Anderson from Stockholm.
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