Britain, France, Germany back Zelenskiy’s call for Putin meeting

Zelensky met British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at 10 Downing Street for talks as the war in Russia enters its fifth year.

In a joint statement with Zelensky, they said the leaders “support the proposal for direct dialogue between Ukraine and Russia, with the active participation of the United States and Europe, to achieve a ceasefire and support further negotiations”.

“The current line of contact should be the starting point for negotiations,” it said.

“International borders must not be changed by force.”

Zelensky proposed a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an open letter on Thursday.

Putin ruled out such a move, saying he saw “no point” in meeting Zelensky until a possible peace deal was reached.

The Ukrainian president told Sky News on Sunday night that he also met with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in Kiev to deliver a message to Putin.

“You are fighting us on our territory,” Zelensky said of his message to Abramovich. Abramovich was sanctioned by Britain and the European Union over her ties to the Kremlin following the Russian invasion.

“We will not leave, we will not leave our territory, we will not bring you victory,” he said, adding that he reiterated his demand for a face-to-face meeting with Putin.

With Ukraine under daily attack from Russia, Kiev has been asking its Western allies to provide more ammunition for its air defense systems. Zelensky is looking for ways for allies to further pressure Russia to end the fighting.

Earlier on Sunday, the Ukrainian president wrote on X that he would meet with Britain’s King Charles III on Monday.

– Nuclear facility targets –

Russia launched multiple waves of drones and other munitions into Ukraine on Sunday, including one attack that damaged a nuclear storage facility near the site of the Chernobyl disaster, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian nuclear energy operator Energoatom said radiation levels at the facility remained within normal limits after the attack, although its fuel receiving building was “partially destroyed”.

Moscow and Kiev have stepped up drone strikes against each other in recent months as U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled and been diverted by conflicts in the Middle East.

Zelensky said in an earlier online post that Russia used Iranian-designed Shahd drones to “attack a building at the centralized spent fuel storage facility in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.”

“So far there have been no readings above normal background radiation levels. But there has certainly been an increase in Russian brazenness, which was off the charts a long time ago,” he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was sending a team to inspect the damage, calling the incident “deeply concerning.”

The facility is located in a remote forest area about a dozen kilometers from the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and is designed to store spent fuel from Ukraine’s three active nuclear power plants.

– fatal blow –

Both sides accused each other on Sunday of another attack on civilians.

Russia bombed a public transport station in Ukraine’s southern Zaporozhye region, killing at least two people, and a nearby drone strike killed a 56-year-old minibus driver, authorities said.

Governor Oleksandr Ganzha posted on Telegram that two people were killed in a Russian attack in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone struck a car in the Belgorod border region, killing a woman and injuring her husband, local authorities said.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions have been forced to flee their homes.

Russia now occupies about a fifth of its neighbor’s territory: the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014, most of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk (collectively known as Donbass), and much of the southern Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

burs/giv/jhb

This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.