European leaders wanted to make sure Putin was fit before the negotiations.
One of the purposes of the phone call between Finnish President Alexander Staab and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Storr with Putin was to assess his psychological state.
Politico writes about this with reference to European sources.
According to Stora, the Kremlin boss behaved "rationally" and "professionally", but the conversation did not convince him of Russia's readiness for peace.
But this is an official press release. We can only guess what really happened during the conversation.
According to the Financial Times, Putin, instead of discussing peace in Ukraine, spent a lot of time talking to Staub and Storr about the "root causes of the conflict" and the medieval history of the Slavs.
Three of the publication's sources claim that the leaders did not interrupt him in an attempt to understand whether he is ready for a dialogue with Europe.
Stubb later publicly denied this information, but his statement could have been an attempt to maintain contact with the Kremlin's owner.