Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Westerners on Thursday of Vladimir Putin's real intentions and called for Russia to be “stopped” before anything else, despite Donald Trump's assurances that the Russian president “wants peace”.
The Europeans, shocked by the announcement of a first telephone conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on the issue, have for their part multiplied their reactions, refusing to see the opening of negotiations on Ukraine behind their backs.
Vladimir Putin “wants peace”, the American president told the press on Thursday.
He also announced that a meeting would be held in Munich (Germany) on Friday between “senior officials from Russia, Ukraine and the United States”. The White House, contacted by AFP, gave no further details.
Kiev retorted that it did not wish to take part. “A common position agreed (with Kiev's allies) must be on the table for a conversation with the Russians (...) For the moment, there is nothing on the table. Talks with the Russians are not on the table,” Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, told reporters.
Earlier in the day, on X, Volodymyr Zelensky had said he had “warned international leaders about trusting Putin's declarations of readiness to end the war”.
The Kremlin said there was no decision yet on the date of the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and that it could “take months”. Before agreeing that Ukraine would participate in the peace talks “in one way or another”.
But for Mr. Zelensky, meetings between Ukraine and the United States are “the priority”. “And it's only after these meetings, after we've worked out a plan to stop Putin, that I think it will be right to talk to the Russians,” he added.
For their part, the Europeans stressed that only real negotiations involving Ukraine and the EU would make it possible to achieve genuine peace on the continent.
“A peace that would be a capitulation” would be ‘bad news for everyone’, warned French President Emmanuel Macron in an interview with the Financial Times published on Friday.
“The only question at this stage is whether, in a sincere, lasting and sustainable way, President Putin is ready for a ceasefire on that basis,” he said.
Peace must be more than a “simple ceasefire”, warned Antonio Costa, President of the European Council, on Thursday.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned that negotiations leading to a Russian victory and the “collapse” of Ukraine would “not bring peace, on the contrary”.
“Peace and stability in Europe, and far beyond Ukraine, would be jeopardized,” he added.
With AFP
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