Join peace talks or suffer huge losses, Zelensky tells Russia

IT WILL take Russia “several generations” to recover from the losses of its invasion of Ukraine unless Moscow engages in genuine peace talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Vladimir Putin yesterday.

Peace talks tentatively began on February 28, four days after Russia first invaded Ukraine, but have so far yielded no results, with both sides accusing each other of dragging things out.

In a video address, Mr Zelensky said “meaningful, fair” peace talks were now “the only chance for Russia to reduce the damage from its own mistakes”.

“This is the time to meet, to talk,” Mr Zelensky said. “Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be so huge that several generations will not be enough to rebound.”

He claimed 14,000 Russian troops had been killed on the battlefield so far, although a more conservative recent estimate from US intelligence suggested the figure was at least 7,000.

“Just imagine 14,000 corpses and tens of thousands of wounded and maimed people,” he said. “There are already so many Russian losses as a result of this invasion. This is the price of war [after] a little more than three weeks.”

The two sides are already holding negotiations remotely, but so far they have made little progress. No talks have been held at the presidential level.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, yesterday accused the US of preventing Kyiv from making a deal.

“It is constantly felt that the Ukrainian delegation is being held by the hand, most likely by the Americans, not allowing them to agree to the demands that I think are absolutely minimal,” he said, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

He said Moscow expected its “operation” in Ukraine to end with the signing of a comprehensive agreement on security issues, including the country’s neutral status.

In a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier this week, Mr Putin laid out his demands from Mr Zelensky, including agreeing not to join Nato and the demilitarisation and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine.

Moscow’s other main request is expected to involve Kyiv granting independence for the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and recognising the Crimean Peninsula as Russian territory – although this has not yet been made explicit.

Ukrainian officials have said the country will not cede territory but is open to neutrality.

Yesterday, Mr Zelensky said: “The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine.”

That has left Western officials confused about what exactly a peace deal would involve.

One senior US official told The Wash

ington Post they had been getting “mixed messages” about the chances of a deal happening any time soon.

‘Meaningful, fair peace talks are the only chance for Russia to reduce the damage from its own mistakes’

With various statesmen putting themselves forward as potential mediators, analysts believe President Erdoğan – who recently offered to host the Ukrainian and Russian leaders for talks – could stand the best chance of convincing Russia to halt its invasion.

He has risked Moscow’s ire in various ways, including by selling armed drones to Ukraine and announcing the closure of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to Russian warships.

But he has also carefully calibrated the Turkish response in order to maintain ties.

In recent years Mr Erdoğan has had a somewhat fractious relationship with the West – threatening to open the floodgates for refugees to Europe and undermining Nato by purchasing Russian anti-missile systems.

However, US President Joe Biden and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have both thanked the Turkish leader for his mediation efforts to date.