German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged the Vietnamese leadership to take a firm stance on the situation in Ukraine following a meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Hanoi on Sunday, German media report.
"Small countries can no longer be safe from the behavior of their larger, more powerful neighbors," Scholz was quoted as saying by the news agency.
Scholz is visiting Vietnam and Singapore for economic cooperation talks before heading for the G20 summit in Bali. Besides Chinh, Scholz also met with Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
In March, Vietnam, along with China and India, abstained from voting on a UN resolution condemning Russia's special operation in Ukraine.