Zelenskyy to travel to Türkiye for peace talks regardless of Putin’s plans

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Ukraine President Volodimir Zellinski pledged to travel to Türkiye, regardless of Vladimir Putin’s plans, which raised the risks in a campaign of pressure to lead Western to make the Russian leader to participate in peace talks.

Zelinski plans to travel to Ankara on Thursday, where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet and wait for Putin to arrive in Istanbul or anywhere else in Türkiye.

If he takes the step to say that he is ready for a ceasefire, it opens the way to discuss all the elements to finish warZelinski told reporters on Tuesday.

If Putin refuses to show, “This means only one thing: Russia is not ready for negotiations,” said Zellinski. In this case, American and European partners must follow their threat to impose “strong sanctions” on Russia.

The new German adviser, Fredchich Mirz, said that European countries are working together to “greatly stress” sanctions if they agreed that there is no “real progress” from Putin.

Mirz said that Basilinsky was impressed with the settlement, but he added: “I think more settlement and more concessions are no longer reasonable.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also said he supports the imposition of new sanctions on Russia in the coming days if Putin fails to agree to a ceasefire.

Zelinski said he was not ready to meet any Russian officials other than Putin, where a “deal” can only be made with the President of Russia.

If the leadership does not happen, a team of Ukrainian negotiators can meet with its Russian counterparts, according to the Zelinski office.

Putin first put forward the idea of ​​meeting in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators-but not leaders-in a short speech on Sunday, weeks after the pressure of Kiev, Washington and European to agree to the unconditional ceasefire for 30 days.

The Kremlin refused to clarify whether the Russian president would attend. When asked about Putin’s plans on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “Russia continues to prepare for talks” and will announce who will participate “as soon as the president sees it as necessary.”

On Monday, Peskov criticized the Western threat of more sanctions as “inappropriate”.

US President Donald Trump urged both sides to hold talks as soon as possible.

Trump, who started the first foreign trip in his second term as an American president in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, said he was open to Join negotiations Among his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in Türkiye, “if you think things can happen, but we have to accomplish them.”

The US President said on Tuesday, the foreign minister and representative security advisor Marco Rubio will travel to Türkiye to participate.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has included some issues that Moscow expects to be a discussion in Istanbul, including “resolving issues related to reducing the Kiev regime”, a Jewish term, a Jew.

Ryabkov said that “recognition of facts” on the ground, including “entering the new regions to the Russian Federation”, should also be on the agenda, in reference to parts of southern and eastern Ukraine that are subject to the Russian occupation.

Zelinski said that the Ukrainian side is looking for an immediate and unconditional endowment for 30 days as a prerequisite for the broader official negotiations.

He added that if Putin agrees that the ceasefire will be followed by the minimum -level talks that focus on practical implementation, security guarantee and broader frameworks to remove the escalation.

Zelenskyy said that since the United States suggested for the first time the unlawful ceasefire more than two months ago, Kyiv was ready to implement it.

He said that Russia, on the other hand, continued to invade Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones and launch new attacks through the 1,000 -km confrontation line.

Deep State, a Ukrainian analytical group close to the Ministry of Defense, said that this week, the Russian armed forces have seized more land in the eastern Donetsk region, especially around the cities of Flash Point in Boukerrovsk and Tusisk.

Ukrainian intelligence officials said Russia appears to be preparing for a greater attack, and transferring the forces to the main hot points in the battlefield, rather than indicating the willingness of peace talks.