Polish President: Calls to Putin like talking to Hitler

Polish President Andrzej Dudaslammed the leaders of both Germany and France for their phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin, comparing it to maintaining a direct line with Adolf Hitler during World War II.

In an interview published in Thursday’s edition of German best-selling newspaper Bild, Duda questioned what Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron thought was to be gained by the calls as Russia continues to bombard civilian targetsin Ukraine.

Macron drew international attention in an interview last week when he said such calls were necessary to prevent Moscow from being “humiliated” and thus preserve the chance of a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Macron said in the same interview that Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked him to keep calling Putin. The French leader has also used the call to urge Putin to release prisoners, which reportedly includes civilians, according to the Elysee Palace.

“Did anyone speak like this with Adolf Hitler during World War Two?” Duda said. “Did anyone say that Adolf Hitler must save face? That we should proceed in such a way that it is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler? I have not heard such voices.”

He described the conversations as “kind of legitimization of a person who is responsible for crimes perpetrated by the Russian army in Ukraine,” and said that there was no evidence that they were “achieving anything.”