Talks are the best hope for Ukraine
KYIV: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that only a diplomatic breakthrough rather than an outright military victory could end Russia’s war on his country, as Moscow cut gas supplies to Finland.
Zelensky also appealed for more military aid, even as US President Joe Biden formally signed off on a $US40bn ($57bn) package of aid for the Ukrainian war effort.
And he insisted his war-ravaged country should be a full candidate to join the EU, rejecting a suggestion from France’s President Emmanuel Macron and some other EU leaders that a sort of associated political community be created as a waiting zone for a membership bid.
“We don’t need such compromises,” Mr Zelensky said.
“Because, believe me, it will not be compromise with Ukraine in Europe, it will be another compromise between Europe and Russia. There are things that can only be reached at the negotiating table.”
The war “will be bloody, there will be fighting but will only definitively end through diplomacy”.
“Discussions between Ukraine and Russia will decidedly take place. Under what format I don’t know,” he said.
After more than 12 weeks of fighting, Ukrainian forces have halted Russian attempts to seize Kyiv and the northern city of Kharkiv, but they are under intense pressure in the eastern Donbas region.
Moscow’s army has flattened and seized the Black Sea port of Mariupol and subjected Ukrainian troops and towns in the east to relentless ground and artillery attacks.
The Russian army announced the last defenders of
Mariupol had surrendered after holding out for weeks at the Azovstal steelworks.
Among the Ukrainian fighters who gave themselves up to the Russian troops were members of the Azov regiment, a former paramilitary unit that has integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces.
Russia describes the unit, which has previous links to farright groups, as a neo-Nazi organisation.
But Moscow will consider exchanging prisoners from the Azov battalion for Viktor Medvedchuk, a wealthy Ukrainian businessman close to President Vladimir Putin, a Russian negotiator said.
Mr Medvedchuk, 67, is a politician and one of Ukraine’s richest people, and is known for his close ties to Mr Putin.
He escaped from house arrest after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February but was rearrested in mid-April.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has responded to EU support for Ukraine by disrupting European energy supplies. On Saturday, Russian energy giant Gazprom said it had halted supplies to neighbouring Finland, which has refused to pay its bill in roubles, which Moscow had demanded in a bid to sidestep financial sanctions and force European energy clients to prop up his central bank. Gasum, Finland’s stateowned energy company, said it would use other sources.