MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Thursday that Ukraine must remove its military from the southeastern region of the country to resolve the showdown there with pro-Russian militants who have seized several official buildings, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
“Putin emphasized that it was imperative today to withdraw all military units from the southeastern regions, stop the violence and immediately launch a broad national dialogue as part of the constitutional reform process involving all regions and political forces,” Interfax said.
Russia has repeatedly blamed Ukraine for escalating the situation and has accused the government in Kiev of deploying 11,000 soldiers in the region. The acting Ukrainian president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, said Wednesday that the security services had lost control of the region to armed separatists who have seized government buildings in about a dozen towns.
Ukraine has said it sent soldiers to the east in response to maneuvers by 40,000 Russian troops deployed just over the border on what the Kremlin has termed training exercises. Kiev has said any move by Russian troops over the border will be treated as an invasion.
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Christiane Wirtz, a spokeswoman for the German chancellor, said Ms. Merkel had urged Mr. Putin to intervene in the case of seven military monitors, including four German soldiers, affiliated with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who are being held hostage by a separatist mayor in the pro-Russian stronghold of Slovyansk.
“The chancellor reminded President Putin of Russia’s responsibility as a member of the O.S.C.E. and called on the president to use his influence,” Ms. Wirtz said. The conversation was initiated by Ms. Merkel, the Kremlin said. Both leaders reportedly agreed that the 57-nation O.S.C.E. should serve as mediator in the impasse over Ukraine.
In a separate report from Interfax, the pro-Russian movement in Slovyansk said that it had freed two of three captured members of the Ukrainian security services in exchange for the release of an unspecified number of its own activists. The report could not be immediately confirmed by independent sources.
In a video posted online earlier this week, the three men were shown beaten and bloodied. They were filmed wearing nothing more than their shirts and underwear, with blood oozing from behind the duct tape covering their eyes.
The separatists controlling City Hall in Slovyansk are holding an estimated 40 prisoners, including the elected mayor.
The status of the elected mayor, Neli Shtepa, has been in dispute, with the militants saying she is under their protection but free, and the government in Kiev saying she is in custody. On Wednesday, the City Council met behind closed doors to accept Ms. Shtepa’s resignation as mayor, but said she would remain in the City Hall building.
Ms. Shtepa, in a brief interview last month organized by the separatists, said that the gunmen had detained her in the building, that she was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of an office, and that she was not free to leave.
Russia and the separatists have denied that they are working together. Mr. Putin has also said that there are no Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, and denies that Moscow is driving the rebellion there. He made similar claims during the annexation of Crimea, however, and then later acknowledged the existence of a Russian operation.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued another statement on Thursday condemning Ukraine for seeking to hold a national vote on May 25, including presidential elections and a referendum on decentralization, while military operations continue in the east. Some analysts believe that Russia is deliberately destabilizing the eastern region via the separatists in order to undermine the attempt to elect a legitimate government in Ukraine.
Details of the conversation between Mr. Putin and Ms. Merkel emerged shortly after Russian news agencies reported the start of what were described as training maneuvers by a newly formed Russian attack helicopter unit near the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. The deployment could crank up tensions with NATO, which has stationed extra fighter jets to reassure jittery former Soviet republics that worry that the Kremlin has its eye on countries besides Ukraine.
Thursday was May Day, and in Moscow tens of thousands gathered in Red Square to mark the celebration of the working man. News announcers crowed that it was the first time the celebration has been held in the square since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, after which the Kremlin studiously kept any activity with political overtones out of there. The day is still a main event for labor unions and the Communist Party, which was a strident opposition party for many years before lining up behind Mr. Putin and his United Russia Party.
The return to the square fit neatly with President Putin’s concerted attempts to burnish the Soviet past, and the speakers and many marchers lauded the annexation of Crimea in March. The bigger annual celebration, with a thundering military parade and a speech by Mr. Putin, has been moved to May 9, Victory Day, which this year marks the 69th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The interim authorities in Kiev were also reported on Thursday to have ordered the expulsion of a naval attaché at Moscow’s embassy after accusing him of “activities incompatible with diplomatic status,” a term that normally denotes espionage, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
There was no immediate response from Russia to the Ukrainian move.
Interfax-Ukraine quoted the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying in a statement, “The military-naval attaché of the embassy of the Russian Federation in Ukraine is declared persona non grata in connection with his actions, which are not in accordance with his diplomatic status.”
The diplomat was not identified. The agency said he had been detained on Wednesday while involved in “intelligence activities.”
The statement did not offer any detail about those activities or say whether they were linked to the occupation of government facilities in the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine, where the authorities have acknowledged losing control.
The expulsion of the Russian diplomat evoked the Cold War, as the West has been expressing growing alarm over the advance of pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine and seeks to reassure allies further afield.
In Moscow, the state-run news agency RIA Novosti quoted Col. Oleg Kochetkov, a spokesman for Russia’s Western Military District, as saying that dozens of attack helicopters — identified as the Mi-28N Night Hunter and the Ka-52 Alligator — supported by military transport helicopters “have begun regular training flights in the skies over northwestern Russia.”
The report referred to NATO’s “ramping up its military presence in the region,” and said, “Media in the former Soviet Baltic states, as well as Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom, have expressed security concerns about Russia’s decision to station the 15th brigade near NATO’s borders.”
Correction: May 1, 2014
An earlier version of this article misidentified the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany that takes place this year. It is the 69th anniversary, not the 70th.
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