Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he could meet Vladimir Putin after allies agree on security guarantees for Ukraine. Photo / Getty Images
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he could meet Vladimir Putin after allies agree on security guarantees for Ukraine. Photo / Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he could meet with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, but only after his allies agree on security guarantees for Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks once the fighting stops.
In comments released on Thursday (local time), he also warned that both sides were preparing for furtherfighting. Russia was building up troops on the southern front line and Ukraine was test-launching a new long-range cruise missile, he said.
Russia said on Thursday that Ukraine did not appear to be interested in “long-term” peace, accusing Kyiv of seeking security guarantees completely incompatible with Moscow’s demands.
US President Donald Trump is trying to end Russia’s three-and-a-half year invasion of Ukraine through talks with Zelenskyy and Putin.
While he has upended a years-long Western policy of isolating the Russian leader, he has made little tangible progress towards a peace deal.
“We want to have an understanding of the security guarantees architecture within seven to 10 days,” Zelenskyy said, in comments to reporters released for publication on Thursday.
“We need to understand which country will be ready to do what at each specific moment.”
A group of allies led by Britain and France are putting together a military coalition to support the guarantees.
Once an outline of the security guarantees is agreed, Trump would like to see a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader said.
But any meeting with the Russian leader should be held in a “neutral” European country, he added, ruling out any summit in Moscow.
He also rejected the idea of China playing a role in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security, citing Beijing’s alleged support for Moscow.
In a daily address on Thursday, Zelenskyy accused Russia of avoiding the “necessity” of holding a meeting between the two countries’ leaders.
“Current signals from Russia are, to be honest, indecent. They’re trying to avoid the necessity to meet. They don’t want to end this war,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy’s comments came as Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles against Ukraine overnight – the biggest barrage since mid-July – killing one person in the western city of Lviv and wounding many others.
Russian missiles also targeted an American-owned factory complex in the town of Mukachevo in the west of Ukraine, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on social media. That attack wounded 19 people, she added.
Russia damages Ukraine with a drone attack. Photo / Getty Images
President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine Andy Hunder said that the factory was “one of the largest American investments in Ukraine”.
“Russia continues to destroy and humiliate US businesses in Ukraine, targeting companies that invest and trade on the US stock markets,” Hunder said on Facebook.
France on Thursday condemned the overnight strikes as showing Moscow’s “lack of will to seriously engage in peace talks”, describing them as the “most massive attack in a month”.
A later shelling of the city of Kherson killed one person and wounded more than a dozen, a local official said.
Meanwhile in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, two people were killed and at least 21 wounded after a Ukrainian shelling, the Russian-installed regional chief, Denis Pushilin, said on Telegram.
Russia claims advances
On the front lines, Russia said it had captured the village of Oleksandro-Shultyne in the eastern Donetsk region, the latest in a long string of territorial gains.
The village lies less than 8km from Kostiantynivka, a fortified town in the Donetsk region that Russia has been pressing towards on both sides.
In comments to journalists on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of making unrealistic security demands.
Any deployment of European troops to the country would be “absolutely unacceptable”, he said.
Rhetoric of the Ukrainian officials “was directly showing that they are not interested in a sustainable, fair, long-term settlement,” Lavrov said.
Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine had tested a long-range cruise missile, known as Flamingo, that can strike targets as far as 3000km away.
“The missile has undergone successful tests. It is currently our most successful missile,” he told reporters.
Mass production could begin by February, he added.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January and began pushing for an end to the fighting, Russian forces have continued to slowly but steadily gain ground across the front line.
US President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House. Photo / Getty Images
Zelenskyy said Russian forces were building up troops along the front in the Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims as its own – along with four other Ukrainian regions.
Trump met Putin in Alaska last Friday, before bringing Zelenskyy and European leaders to Washington for separate talks on Monday.
Zelenskyy has said the only way to end the war is a meeting with Putin, and has said Trump should be present too.
But Moscow has played down the prospect of a summit between Putin and Zelenskyy any time soon, saying it wants to be included in discussions on future security guarantees for Ukraine.
