The leaders of Ukraine and Russia pointed out that their previous refusal to speak between them has softened, after the promise of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, of ending the large -scale invasion of Moscow.
In an interview on Tuesday night with television presenter Piers Morgan, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, reiterated his preparation to speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to end the war, in the presence of the Ukraine partners.
His statement echoed Bloomberg News last month that he is ready to sit at the negotiating table with Russia along with the United States and the European Union.
Zelensky has long ruled out direct conversations with Putin. But with Trump’s return to the White House and the Russian troops that continue to advance in eastern Ukraine, the attempt to end the war, now in its third year, it has a new urgency.
“If this is the only configuration in which we can bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine, we will definitely go for this configuration,” Zelensky said when Morgan asked him how he would feel sitting in front of the Russian leader. “What matters my attitude towards him?”
“Talking with Putin at all: a conversation with this murderer is already a commitment,” said Zelenskiy.
Putin, who assured a fifth presidential mandate in the elections closely controlled by the Kremlin, has said that he cannot negotiate an agreement with Zelensky, whom he called an illegitimate president.
The term of Zelensky ended formally last May, although the new presidential elections cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine declared at the beginning of the large -scale invasion of Russia.
However, Moscow’s position also seems to have changed. Despite Zelensky’s “main problems” in terms of legitimacy, “the Russian side remains open to negotiations,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, journalists, said on Wednesday.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a union feed).
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