Ukraine will continue to work with partners, including the United States, on peace proposals, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday (24), on the second day of negotiations in Switzerland, after Washington proposed a plan that requires concessions from Kiev.
“We continue to work with partners, especially the United States, to seek commitments that strengthen us, but do not weaken us,” Zelensky said via videoconference from Sweden, where he was participating in a summit of countries seeking Russia’s withdrawal from the Crimean peninsula, territory occupied by Ukraine.
On Sunday (23), Ukraine and the United States said in a joint statement that they had drawn up a “refined peace framework” after negotiations in Geneva, although they did not provide details.
Zelensky said Russia must pay for the war in Ukraine and that a decision on the use of frozen Russian assets was crucial.
“Right now we are at a critical stage,” he said. “There is a lot of speculation in the media, a lot of political pressure and an even greater responsibility for the decisions that lie ahead.”
Understand the war in Ukraine
Russia began its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently holds about a fifth of the neighboring country’s territory. Still in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The Russians are slowly advancing in the east and Moscow shows no signs of abandoning its main war objectives.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, President of the United States, is pushing for a peace agreement.
Ukraine has carried out increasingly bold attacks inside Russia and says the operations are aimed at destroying essential Russian army infrastructure. Putin’s government, in turn, has intensified air strikes, including drone offensives.
Both sides deny targeting civilians, but thousands have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Thousands of soldiers are also believed to have died on the front line, but neither side releases military casualty figures.
The United States says 1.2 million people were injured or killed in the war.
