ZEL: WE WON'T YIELD TO PUTIN
Ukraine prez to meet Xi in peace bid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said he would meet with China’s Xi Jinping — after Beijing called for peace talks to end the war — though he categorically refused to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.
“I am planning to meet with Xi Jinping,” Zelensky said during a wideranging, two-hour press conference on the anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. “This will be important for world security.”
He did not say when or where the meeting would take place.
“It’s an important signal that they are preparing to take part in this theme,” he added from Kyiv, referring to China’s bid to broker peace between the two countries. “So far, I see this as a signal — I don’t know what will happen later.”
But the 45-year-old first-term president warned Russia-allied China to not provide Moscow with arms.
Washington has said in recent days it believes China may supply weapons to Russia. Beijing denies this.
“I very much want to believe that China will not deliver weapons to Russia, and for me this is very important,” he said. “This is point number one.”
Zelensky again rejected the idea of negotiating with Putin — which he has previously said was “impossible.”
“He does not know what dignity and honesty are,” the president stated in October.
He instead reiterated his oft-stated position that any peace talks with Russia would have to be preceded by an immediate cessation of all hostilities and a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine’s territory.
“If you do all that, then we would tell you in which format we would diplomatically put an end to the war,” he said.
The stoic wartime leader was almost bought to tears earlier Friday as he marked the war’s somber anniversary by handing out awards to soldiers and the kin of those killed in battle.
“We will never forget,” a visibly emotional Zelensky told a fallen soldier’s widow and daughter while giv
ing out Hero of Ukraine medals to families and troops.
The gut-wrenching ceremony was held next to the green- and gold-domed cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv, which has become a symbol of the country’s resilience against its invaders.
As a military band played the
national anthem while Ukraine’s yellow-and-blue national flag fluttered in the wind on the cold, overcast day, Zelensky sang along with tears in his eyes.
“I want to say to all of you who are fighting for Ukraine . . . I am proud of you. We all, each and every one, are proud of you!” said Zelensky,
clad in an army-green jacket.
He later presented flags of military units to several troops in full military gear, each of whom took a knee and kissed the banner.
In a video address titled “The Year of Invincibility,” which was also released Friday, a defiant Zelensky pledged to liberate all the occupied lands “one way or another.”
Ukraine has maintained that Russia must pull its troops out of the five regions it has illegally annexed since 2014 and recognize the country’s 1991 borders.
But the Russian foreign ministry said Friday the world should recognize “new territorial realities” in Ukraine as a precondition of peace, suggesting that the Kremlin should be allowed to keep its territorial gains.
Despite meeting a fierce resistance from the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces, Russia has managed to capture about one-fifth of the country and has made incremental progress near the city of Bakhmut in the east, which has seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.
Zelensky was also asked about a comment attributed to US Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who reportedly suggested that Ukraine won’t be able to drive Russian forces out of the entire occupied territory.
The Ukrainian leader responded that he did not hear this during his meeting with Milley, but he added that “if Gen. Milley wants us to push the enemy out of our country, I think that . . . he should speed up the supply of weapons.”
The prime minister of NATOmember Poland visiting Kyiv on the war anniversary announced that the first batch of its Leopard tanks had arrived in Ukraine.
The US and its fellow G-7 nations have pledged to intensify their support for Ukraine and proclaimed that they would never recognize the illegal annexation by Russia of Ukraine’s lands.