LVIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine could declare neutrality and offer security guarantees to Russia to secure peace “immediately,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of another scheduled round of talks — though he said only a face-to-face meeting with Russia’s leader could start the war break up.
While hinting at possible concessions in an interview with independent Russian media, Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine’s priority is to ensure its sovereignty and its “territorial integrity” – to prevent Russia from partitioning the country, which according to Ukraine and the West could now be Moscow’s goal.
But Zelenskyy added: “Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state – we are ready for it.”
The Ukrainian leader has hinted at this before, but rarely so forcefully, and the latest comments come as the two sides said talks would resume on Tuesday.
Russia has long urged Ukraine to abandon any hope of joining the western NATO alliance, which Moscow sees as a threat. Zelenskyy said that after the withdrawal of Russian troops, the issue of neutrality, which would keep Ukraine away from NATO or other military alliances, should be put to Ukrainian voters in a referendum.
Zelenskyy has also long emphasized that Ukraine needs its own security guarantees for every agreement.
“We have to come to an agreement with the President of the Russian Federation, and in order to reach an agreement, he has to get out of there on his own … and come to meet me,” he also said in an interview that Russia gave its media the publication prohibited.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday the two presidents could meet, but only after key elements of a possible deal have been negotiated.
“The meeting is necessary as soon as we have clarity about solutions to all important issues,” Lavrov said in an interview with Serbian media. He accused Ukraine of just trying to “mimic talks” but said Russia needed concrete results.
In a late night video address to his nation, Zelenskyy said Ukraine seeks peace “immediately” in talks set to begin in Istanbul. The location was agreed after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, the Turkish leader’s office said. The negotiators are expected to arrive on Monday.
Previous talks, both video and in person, have yielded no progress in ending a more than months-old war that has killed thousands and driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes – including nearly 4 million from their country.
The war has prompted Western countries to impose punitive sanctions on Russia, putting pressure on its economy. Putin recently said that Russia would require “unfriendly” countries to pay for its natural gas exports in rubles only – a move economists said was aimed at propping up Russia’s collapsed currency.
Germany’s energy minister said on Monday the group of seven major economies had rejected the request. Robert Habeck told reporters that “all G-7 ministers were in full agreement that this would be a unilateral and clear breach of existing treaties.”
With Russia’s offensive stalled in many areas, its troops are engaging in a grueling war on Ukrainian cities and towns with missiles and artillery. Fierce fighting rages on the outskirts of Kyiv, but Russian troops remain miles from the city center and their goal of rapidly encircling the capital is faltering
In the village of Stoyanka near Kyiv, Ukrainian soldier Serhiy Udod said Russian troops had taken up defensive positions and suffered heavy casualties.
He said “probably they thought it was like Crimea,” which Russia annexed in 2014.
“But it’s not like Crimea here. We’re not happy to see them. Here they suffer and are killed.”
A fiercer-than-expected Ukrainian resistance – backed by arms from the US and other Western allies – has been credited with stalling Russian forces.
But Zelenskyy has directed increasingly angry pleas for Western countries to do more, including sending in fighter jets, and on Sunday accused political leaders of a lack of courage. NATO-allied countries have been reluctant to give Zelenskyy any of the more powerful equipment he has asked for for fear of triggering a much larger war.
In fact, the invasion of Russia has at least some concern among most Americans that the US could be drawn directly into the conflict and be attacked with nuclear weapons, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Moscow now says its focus is on securing the entire eastern Donbass region, which has been partially controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, accused Russia of splitting Ukraine in two, comparing it to North and South Korea. He predicted that a guerrilla war by Ukrainians would derail such plans.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has banned coverage of troop and equipment movements that have not been announced or approved by the military. Journalists who break the law face three to eight years in prison.
The restrictions come after Ukrainian authorities criticized social media users who posted photos or videos of troop movements. In a widely publicized case, a Kiev resident was accused by security services of posting images on TikTok showing Ukrainian military vehicles near a shopping mall that was later destroyed by a Russian missile attack. Russia claimed Ukraine used the site to stock rocket artillery.
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Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Nebi Qena in Kyiv, Cara Anna in Lviv, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine