WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- U.S. and European officials have spoken to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, NBC quoted an unidentified senior U.S. official and one former U.S. official as saying.
The war in Ukraine, now in its 21st month, has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands and destroyed swathes of the country. It has also triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
NBC said the conversations had included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia.
Asked on Saturday about the NBC report, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky reaffirmed his stance that this was not the time to negotiate with Russia, and he also denied that any Western leaders were pressuring him to do so.
“Everyone knows my attitude, which coincides with the attitude of Ukrainian society ... Today no one is putting pressure (on me to negotiate), not one of the leaders of the EU or the United States,” he told a joint news conference with the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in Kyiv.
“For us now to sit down with Russia and talk and give it something - this will not happen.”
Ukraine has repeatedly said it aims to retake all the territory taken by Russia, including Crimea which was annexed in 2014, and that it will not rest until every Russian soldier has been driven from its lands.
NBC quoted the U.S. officials as saying that the conversations with Ukraine came amid concerns in the United States and Europe that the war has reached a stalemate and worries about the West’s ability to continue providing aid to Kyiv.
Russia currently controls about 17.5% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.
Moscow says it had to launch what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine in response to what it sees as a hostile and aggressive West it says is using Kyiv to undermine Russia.
The Kremlin says it will achieve all of its aims in Ukraine.
On Friday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF that his country is not conducting any secret talks with Russia.
He said the basis for a peace deal is respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“From diplomatic to plain language, it means that Russia must leave Ukraine,” Kuleba said. “Until that happens, until they are ready to do that, there
is no point in holding any negotiations.”
Ukrainian and Russian delegations are currently discussing three main issues, as reported by The Washington Post: the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of the bodies of deceased soldiers, the passage of ships through the Black Sea, and the repatriation of Ukrainian children from Russia.
Since the beginning of the war in February 2022, Ukrainian officials have consistently rejected peace talks with Russia.
Last month, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder revealed that Ukraine had requested his mediation in talks with Russia at the war’s onset, but no agreement on this had been reached.
In September, President Zelensky signed a decree issued by the National Security and Defense Council, making negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin impossible.