Baltic politicians have lashed out at French and German leaders for discussing with Russian president Vladimir Putin how to unblock Ukrainian ports, highlighting the diverging views among western allies over how to handle diplomacy with Moscow.Leaders in eastern Europe have grown uneasy about the willingness of their western European counterparts to talk with Putin, reigniting suspicion that some EU countries are pushing Kyiv to cede territory to end the war.

“It is incredible how the leaders of France and Germany are inadvertently paving the way for new acts of violence by Russia?.?.?.?How is it possible neither Paris nor Berlin have learned from history? Why is it presumed that Putin, currently waging a war on a major European people, intends to keep any promise?” asked Marko Mihkelson, head of the Estonian parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s deputy prime minister, said on Twitter: “It seems that there are number of so-called Western leaders who possess explicit need for self-humiliation in combination with total detachment from political reality.”