Ukraine Needs to Face Reality, Talk to Putin - Zelensky
KYIV (Dsipatches) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said Ukraine was not eager to talk to Russia’s Vladimir Putin but that it has to face the reality that this will likely be necessary to end the war.
“There are things to discuss with the Russian leader. I’m not telling you that to me our people are eager to talk to him, but we have to face the realities of what we are living through,” Zelensky said in an address to an Indonesian think tank.
“What do we want from this meeting... We want our lives back... We want to reclaim the life of a sovereign country within its own territory,” he said, adding that Russia did not appear to be ready yet for serious peace talks.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, on Thursday said the conditions that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is setting for a truce aren’t feasible.
“The conditions that Zelensky is putting forward for a truce are categorical to the point of idiocy and unfeasible in principle,” Medvedev said on Telegram, TASS reported.
The official said that the Ukrainian president “demands to make Donbass and Crimea Ukrainian again, as if he’s unaware of the will of their residents”.
“Withdraw all troops from Donbass, giving the Ukrainian army a field day for repressions against people,” he said, adding, “And then, perhaps, he will start to have talks about something.”
“Ultimatums sound nice only on paper,” Medvedev continued.
“And they usually are made from a position of strength, not obvious weakness. At the moment of victory, not defeat. With a sober mind, not on psychotropic drugs,” he added.