Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski asked this Saturday (04.23.2022) to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to “end the war”.
“I think whoever started the war will be able to put an end to it,” Zelensky told a news conference at a kyiv metro station. In addition, the Ukrainian leader reiterated that he was not “afraid” to meet with Putin if that allowed a peace agreement to be reached between the two countries.
“I insisted from the beginning to have negotiations with the Russian president,” he recalled. “It’s not that I want to (meet with Putin), but I have to do it to resolve this conflict diplomatically,” he added.
Ukraine will abandon negotiations if Russia kills soldiers entrenched in Azovstal
The Ukrainian president warned on the other hand that kyiv would abandon the peace negotiations if Russia killed the Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the gigantic Azovstal steelworks, in Mariupol, a city besieged and bombed by Russian troops for almost two months.
“If our men are killed in Mariupol and if so-called referendums are organized in the Kherson region, Ukraine will withdraw from the entire negotiation process,” he said.
He also said he was “ready” for “an exchange” of the “military who defend Mariupol” under “any format”, to get “those people who find themselves in a horrible situation, surrounded”.
“Today is one of the most difficult days” since the start of the Russian siege of Mariupol in early March, he lamented.
afp/dpa /rr
