US president-elect says the war has ‘got to stop’ as German chancellor urges Putin to start talks with Kyiv in rare phone call. What we know on day 997Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russia’s war against his country will “end sooner” than it otherwise would have once Donald Trump becomes US president next year.In a radio interview aired on Saturday, the Ukrainian president conceded that the battlefield situation in eastern Ukraine was difficult and Russia was making advances. He said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was not interested in agreeing to a peace deal.Zelenskyy criticised a phone call between the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Putin, saying it opened a “Pandora’s box” by undermining efforts to isolate the Russian leader. “Now there may be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address on Friday. “And this is exactly what Putin has long wanted: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation and to conduct ordinary negotiations.” According to Reuters, Zelenskyy and other European officials had cautioned Scholz against the move.Scholz said Donald Trump privately held “a more nuanced position than is often assumed” on Ukraine. Trump’s re-election in last week’s US presidential vote has raised concerns he could withdraw Washington’s significant support for Ukraine once back in the White House. Scholz, who spoke to Trump by phone on Sunday, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Friday his call with the president-elect was “perhaps surprisingly, a very detailed and good conversation”. Asked by the paper whether Trump would make a deal over the head of the Ukrainians, Scholz said