With US and Russian leaders set to satisfy in Alaska subsequent week, Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelenskyy warns offers with out his nation won’t convey peace.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dominated out Ukraine ceding land to Russia and demanded his nation participate in negotiations in feedback made earlier than deliberate talks between the leaders of Russia and america.
In a video shared on social media on Saturday, Zelenskyy mentioned Ukraine was prepared for “actual selections” that would convey a “dignified peace” however confused there may very well be no violation of the structure on territorial points.
“Ukrainians won’t reward their land to the occupier,” he mentioned, warning that “selections with out Ukraine” wouldn’t convey peace.
“They won’t obtain something. These are stillborn selections. They’re unworkable selections. And all of us want actual and real peace. Peace that folks will respect,” added Zelenskyy, whose nation has been preventing off a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022.
His feedback got here hours after US President Donald Trump mentioned a peace deal would contain “some swapping of territories” as he introduced a gathering on Friday together with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, within the US state of Alaska to debate the struggle in Ukraine.
Tens of 1000’s of individuals have been killed since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, which additionally compelled hundreds of thousands of individuals to flee their properties.
Three rounds of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine this 12 months have did not bear fruit, and it stays unclear whether or not a summit would convey peace any nearer.
On Thursday, Putin mentioned he considers a gathering with Zelenskyy attainable however the situations for such negotiations have to be proper and the stipulations for this are nonetheless removed from being met.
The Russian president didn’t define his situations, however beforehand, the Kremlin has insisted that Ukraine quit the territories Russia occupies, Western nations cease supplying Ukraine with weapons and so they exclude Ukraine from membership within the NATO navy alliance.
“There was numerous hypothesis over what a ceasefire settlement may seem like by which the strains of contact between Russia and Ukraine may very well be frozen for a variety of years,” Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javad, reporting from Moscow, mentioned.
“It is usually not clear whether or not the Russian demand that NATO’s ambitions in Ukraine needs to be ceaselessly quashed is definitely going to be met.”
‘A difficult course of’
Ukraine and its European allies have lengthy opposed any settlement that entails ceding occupied territory, however Putin has repeatedly mentioned any deal should require Ukraine to relinquish a number of the territories Russia has seized.
Russia declared 4 Ukrainian areas that it doesn’t totally management – Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Luhansk – its territory in 2022 and in addition claims the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov mentioned the talks between the presidents of Russia and the US subsequent week will “give attention to discussing choices for reaching a long-term peaceable decision to the Ukrainian disaster”.
“This may evidently be a difficult course of, however we’ll interact in it actively and energetically,” Ushakov mentioned.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, a detailed ally of Ukraine, mentioned on Friday {that a} pause within the battle may very well be shut.
“There are particular indicators, and we even have an instinct that maybe a freeze within the battle – I don’t need to say the tip, however a freeze within the battle – is nearer than it’s additional away,” Tusk mentioned at a information convention after talks with Zelenskyy. “There are hopes for this.”
The Alaska summit can be the primary between sitting US and Russian presidents since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.
Trump and Putin final sat collectively in 2019 at a Group of 20 summit in Japan throughout Trump’s first time period. They’ve spoken by phone a number of instances since Trump returned to the White Home in January.
