During their phone discussion, the leaders of France and Germany asked Vladimir Putin to hold “direct serious negotiations” with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron held the 80-minute conversation with the Russian president this morning.
The two EU leaders “insisted on an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops”, the German chancellor’s office said.
Macron and Scholz urged Putin to have “serious direct negotiations with the Ukrainian president and (find) a diplomatic solution to the conflict”.
Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace talks negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak earlier said that any agreement with Russia cannot be trusted.
“Any agreement with Russia isn’t worth a broken penny,” Podolyak wrote on Telegram.
“Is it possible to negotiate with a country that always lies cynically and propagandistically?”
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other after peace talks broke down, with the last known face-to-face negotiations on 29 March.
BBC