Zelenskiy says talks with US ‘positive’, Russia strikes
Daniel Flynn |
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has criticised Russia for answering his offer of an Easter truce with airstrikes, but he praised as “positive” fresh talks with US mediators aimed at resolving the four-year conflict.
Zelenskiy held talks remotely on Wednesday with special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law – and Senator Lindsey Graham as part of ongoing US efforts to negotiate an end to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also joined the call, amid ongoing tensions between Washington and some of its partners in the military alliance.
In his nightly video address after the call, Zelenskiy thanked America for its efforts to bring peace and said the Ukrainian and US teams had agreed to strengthen a document outlining US security guarantees for any future peace deal.
“This is precisely what could pave the way for a reliable end to the war,” Zelenskiy said.
In recent weeks, Zelenskiy has said the United States was pressuring Ukraine to make concessions to bring a quick end to the conflict, which has fallen well below Iran in Washington’s priorities since the US and Israel launched attacks on Tehran in late February.
Talks with Russia are deadlocked over the vital question of land, with Ukraine refusing to cede to Russian demands that it relinquish the remaining parts of the eastern, industrialised region of Donbas that Russia has been unable to conquer.
Zelenskiy said he spoke to US negotiators about his offer of an Easter ceasefire to the Russian side. Easter, according to the Orthodox Christian calendar, the dominant faith in Ukraine and Russia, falls on April 12 this year.
Russia’s foreign ministry on Wednesday publicly rejected the proposal as a “PR stunt”. Zelenskiy said Russian forces fired more than 700 drones, many of them Iranian-designed Shaheds, on Wednesday, when parts of western and central Ukraine were targeted in a rare daytime attack.
“Russia is responding with ‘Shahed drones’ and continues its terrorist operations against our energy sector, against our infrastructure,” Zelenskiy said, adding he had discussed with US negotiators ways of advancing diplomacy.
“Other signals are needed, and a silence over Easter could be exactly the signal that tells everyone that diplomacy can be successful.”
Zelenskiy said in an earlier Telegram post that he had also spoken with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday and briefed him on his ceasefire proposal as well as the status of the battlefield, where the Ukrainian military says it is holding back an intensified spring offensive by Russian forces.
“I informed Keir about the situation on the frontline: our positions are now much stronger,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine has recently stepped up strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. About 40 per cent of Russia’s oil export capacity has been halted, according to a Reuters calculation last week.
Zelenskiy has said Ukraine was ready to suspend such strikes if Russia agrees to stop attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin reiterated that Ukraine should have withdrawn troops “yesterday” from the remainder of Donbas.
Ukraine sees ceasing hostilities at current front lines as a compromise and rejects Russia’s demands to pull back from the land it still controls in the Donetsk region, part of Donbas.
Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for a summit with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the territorial issue could only be discussed at the leaders’ level.
Reuters