Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday February 4 to be ready for direct negotiations with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and other leaders to end the war launched by the Kremlin three years ago. Asked about the possibility of negotiating with Vladimir Putin by the British presenter Piers Morgan, Volodymyr Zelensky replied that it would do it “if it is the only configuration in which we can bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine and no longer lose people “.
In this case, “we will accept this configuration, this meeting with four participants,” he said in this interview broadcast on Tuesday on the YouTube channel “Piers Morgan Uncensored”. He did not specify who would be the other participants but, a little earlier, Piers Morgan had mentioned the hypothesis of negotiations between Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the European Union.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January revived the conjectures around peace talks to end the Russian invasion started in February 2022. Volodymyr Zelensky has long rejected the idea of negotiations, saying that he wanted to beat Russia on the battlefield.
A decree, dated October 2022, had even excluded any negotiation as long as Vladimir Putin is in power. But Ukraine is struggling against the Russian army, which is advancing in the east of the country. And kyiv fears seeing American aid dry up, Donald Trump having criticized these expenses during his campaign. The talks remain hypothetical, however, because no concrete element has been advanced and the positions of Moscow and kyiv remain very distant.
Vladimir Putin said in late January to be open to negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine, while rejecting direct discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and claiming that he does not see any “will” from kyiv. If the Ukrainian president “wants to participate in negotiations, I will choose people who will carry out these negotiations,” he said, judging him “illegitimate”.
Volodymyr Zelensky claims that any potential peace agreement should contain solid security guarantees for his country on the part of Westerners. The Kremlin, in substance, asks the surrender of Ukraine, which it renounces to join NATO and that Russia keeps the Ukrainian territories whose annexation it has claimed.