Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Open For Ceasefire But Doubts Russia’s Intentions
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
ANKARA/ISTANBUL/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday he is open to a ceasefire with Russia but warned that Moscow seems “not serious” about peace talks.
Yet Zelenskyy told the press in Ankara that the mandate of the Ukrainian delegation led by his Defence Minister Rustem Umerov is to discuss a ceasefire during a meeting with Russian envoys in Turkey.
He added that a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin “could be skipped” if a ceasefire agreement between the two countries is reached during technical talks in Istanbul.
He said that to show U.S. President Donald J. Trump that Ukraine “is seeking an end to the conflict,” he agreed to send officials from Ankara to Istanbul, which is more than 400 kilometers (almost 300 miles) away.
These are the first direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow since March 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor the previous month.
More than 1 million people, many of them soldiers, are believed to have been killed in Europe’s most significant conflict since the Second World War.
However, Zelenskyy also said at a press event in Ankara that if Moscow failed to show any willingness to engage in ceasefire talks, then other nations should put more political and economic pressure on Russia and impose more sanctions.
“Russia does not feel that it needs to end [the war], which means there is not enough political, economic, and other pressure on the Russian Federation,” he stressed.
“And so we ask, if there is no ceasefire, if there are no serious decisions … we ask for appropriate sanctions.”
Analysts say Moscow may seek to win time to change the battlefield’s reality.
Despite more than three years of fighting and having a much larger army, Russia still has about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory. It also annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula.
Among its demands for an end to the war, Russia seeks to keep its captured regions, a pledge that Ukraine won’t join the NATO military alliance, and no western forces on Ukrainian territory, according to well-informed sources.
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