Zelenskyy says Russia must pull out for talks
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president said Wednesday that Russia must pull back to its pre-war positions as a first step before diplomatic talks, a negotiating line that Moscow is unlikely to agree to anytime soon as it focuses its fire on key regions in the east three months into the war.
Speaking by video link at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed a willingness to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, but stressed that Moscow needs to make clear it too is ready to “shift from the bloody war to diplomacy.”
“It’s possible if Russia shows at least something. When I say at least something, I mean pulling back troops to where they were before Feb. 24,” the day Russia’s invasion began, he said. “I believe it would be a correct step for Russia to make.”
Zelenskyy also made clear that Ukraine wants to drive Russian troops out of all captured areas.
“Ukraine will fight until it reclaims all its territories,” he said. “It’s about our independence and our sovereignty.”
Attending the Davos forum in person, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the situation in his country’s eastern Donbas region was “extremely bad.”
He called for friendly countries — particularly the United States — to provide the Ukrainian military with multiple launch rocket systems so they could try to recapture territory.
“Every day of someone sitting in Washington, Berlin, Paris and other capitals, and considering whether they should or should not do something, costs us lives and territories,” Kuleba said.
A regional governor in eastern Ukraine said that at least six civilians have been killed by the latest Russian shelling in a town at the epicenter of fighting.
Luhansk region Gov. Serhiy Haidai said Wednesday that eight more people have been wounded in the shelling of Sievierodonetsk over the past 24 hours. He accused the Russian troops of deliberately targeting shelters where civilians were hiding.
Sievierodonetsk is located in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, where Russian forces have been pressing their offensive despite stiff Ukrainian resistance.
Ukrainian forces continue to hold the city, but a key supply route is coming under pressure, Haidai said.
Sievierodonetsk and the nearby city of Lysychansk are the largest remaining settlements held by Ukraine in the Luhansk region, of which Haidai is the Kyiv-backed governor. The region is “more than 90%” controlled by Russia, he said.