Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States wants his country’s war with Russia, which has been going on for nearly four years, to end by June this year. He added that the United States has offered to host talks between Kiev and the Kremlin in Florida next week.
According to Zelensky, the possible talks between Ukraine and Russia come amid the latter’s continued attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. (File photo/AP/AFP)”The United States has proposed for the first time that the two negotiating teams — Ukraine and Russia — will meet in the United States, possibly in Miami, within a week,” Zelensky said while speaking to reporters in comments released early Saturday, news agency AFP reported.
“They say they want everything done by June,” he added.
It comes after two rounds of US-brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi since January. While both sides agreed to a major prisoner exchange during the talks, friction over the issue of territory, a major point of contention between them, remains unresolved.
Russia currently occupies about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and is seeking more control over Ukraine’s key eastern Donetsk region as part of a peace deal, an offer rejected outright by Kiev, although Moscow has threatened to use force if talks fail.
Russia hit Ukraine’s power plantAccording to Zelensky, the possible talks between Ukraine and Russia come amid the latter’s continued attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. In a video posted on Saturday, Zelensky said that a night earlier, “the Russians hit critical installations for the operation of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants”.
“Today, units of the NPP in Ukraine reduced power production, and one unit was automatically shut down. This is a level of attack that no terrorist in the world has ever dared, and Russia must feel the world’s reaction,” he said.
“Russia must show that not only such attacks and wars are important to it, but also deliver results to ongoing negotiations,” he added.
(with input from AFP)
