UKRAINE NEEDS TO FACE REALITY, TALK TO PUTIN—ZELENSKYY
KYIV—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said Ukraine was not eager to talk to Russia’s Vladimir Putin but that it has to face the reality that this will likely be necessary to end the war.
“There are things to discuss with the Russian leader... [W]e have to face the realities of what we are living through,” Zelenskyy said in an address to an Indonesian think tank.
“What do we want from this meeting... We want our lives back... We want to reclaim the life of a sovereign country within its own territory,” he said, adding that Russia did not appear to be ready yet for serious peace talks.
The Kremlin later blamed Ukraine for the fact that peace talks between the two countries are frozen, saying it was unclear what Kyiv wanted.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters: “The Ukrainian leadership constantly makes contradictory statements. This does not allow us to fully understand what the Ukrainian side wants.”
Putin is making slow but palpable progress in the Donbas in east Ukraine, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday.
“I’m afraid that Putin, at great cost to himself and to the Russian military, is continuing to chew through ground in Donbas,” he told Bloomberg UK.
“He’s continuing to make gradual, slow, but I’m afraid palpable, progress and therefore it is absolutely vital that we continue to support the Ukrainians militarily.”
Russia on Friday pressed its offensive to capture key points in the eastern Donbas region, with more shelling and pro-Moscow forces claiming the capture of a key town on the way to Kyiv-controlled territory.
Three months after Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24, Moscow is focusing on the east of Ukraine after failing to capture Kyiv.
Russian forces were closing in on several cities in the region including strategically located Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which stand on the crucial route to Ukraine’s eastern administrative center in Kramatorsk.