Ukrainian President Zelenskyy insists Ukraine must be involved in any peace negotiations with Russia, rejecting bilateral talks between Moscow and Washington without Kyiv's participation.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday Ukraine would not accept any bilateral agreement on its fate reached by Moscow and Washington without Kyiv's involvement, and called for Europe to have a seat at the table in negotiations to end the war.
The Ukrainian leader made the comments at a nuclear plant on his way to the Munich Security Conference, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin Zelenskyy and announced the start of negotiations.
"We, as an independent country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us," Zelenskyy told reporters.
The Putin call and remarks by Trump's defence secretary, who said Kyiv cannot join NATO or that a return to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is unrealistic, have caused alarm in Europe that the White House could seek to make a deal with Russia without them.
"Today it's important that everything does not go according to Putin's plan, in which he wants to do everything to make his negotiations bilateral (with the U.S.)," Zelenskyy said.
He said it was important for the United States and Ukraine to draw up a plan to end the war before talking to the Russian side. He has been pushing to meet Trump before Trump meets Putin, although the U.S. president said on Wednesday that he was expecting to meet Putin in the future, probably in Saudi Arabia.
Ukraine has said it is working on a Zelenskyy-Trump meeting, but nothing firm has been announced so far.
Zelenskyy said he did not discuss the matter of NATO membership during his phone call with Trump, though he said he knew that the United States was against the idea.
He also tried to play down the significance of Trump calling Putin before him on Wednesday, saying it did not look like a marker of Washington's real priorities but adding that it was nonetheless "unpleasant".
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For more than three years, Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a deadly conflict that has resulted in thousands of lives lost, billions of dollars spent on arms and military equipment, and repeated calls for peace.
Several nights a week, Daria Slavytska packs a stroller with blankets, food, and a yoga mat. Then she heads into the Kyiv subway with her two-year-old son Emil, to sleep.
A mass Russian drone strike hit the Ukrainian port city of Odesa early Saturday, killing at least one resident and igniting a multi-storey apartment building, the city’s mayor said.
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