Germany’s Merz and Ukraine’s Zelensky praise truce efforts

BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday welcomed “efforts in favor of a truce,” Berlin said, after Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin had agreed to a week-long halt on attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.

Merz at the same time stressed that “the systematic and brutal destruction of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure by Russian attacks” was “still ongoing,” which he condemned “in the strongest terms,” his spokesman, Stefan Kornelius, said.