KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky will head to Turkiye on Wednesday seeking to revive the United States’ involvement in diplomatic efforts to end the Russian invasion, a Ukrainian official told AFP.
Zelensky said he wanted to reinvigorate frozen peace talks, which have faltered after several sounds of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul this year failed to yield a breakthrough. Moscow has not agreed to a ceasefire and instead kept advancing on the front and bombarding Ukrainian cities.
Zelensky will meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Wednesday, where his “main goal is for the Americans to re-engage” in peace efforts, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP.
Kyiv is hoping Washington will be able to push Russia to the negotiating table, including by imposing sanctions, the official said.
Steve Witkoff, the US envoy, is expected to join talks with Zelensky in Turkiye, another Ukrainian official, involved in the meeting’s preparation, told AFP.
The Kremlin said that no Russian official will be present at talks in Turkiye on Wednesday, adding that it remains open to talks to resolve the war in Ukraine.
American lawmakers are working on a bill to strengthen sanctions against Russia by potentially imposing tariffs on all countries buying its oil and gas.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the legislation was “okay with me.”
- ‘Solutions’ -
Trump sought to leverage his personal chemistry with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the Ukrainian conflict, but has so far failed to make progress.
In a sign of growing frustration with Putin, Trump slapped Moscow’s two biggest oil companies with sanctions.
“The Americans are now discussing a new wave of pressure, so it is logical to negotiate about diplomacy,” the Ukrainian official added.
“We are preparing to reinvigorate negotiations, and we have developed solutions that we will propose to our partners,” Zelensky said on social media.
Zelensky also said his team was “working to restore POW exchanges and bring our prisoners of war home.”
Prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of fallen soldiers’ bodies were the only tangible results of the talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul between May and July, but they slowed down.
Lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said he sought to resume prisoners exchanges, aiming to release about 1,200 Ukrainians.
Zelensky is currently on a European tour to garner support for his army and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
He is due to meet Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday.
A day earlier, the Ukrainian leader signed an accord with France for Kyiv to acquire up to 100 Rafale fighter jets and other hardware, including drones.
Moscow slammed the agreement as “fueling militaristic and pro-war sentiment” and said it won’t change the situation on the ground.
Tough winter
In October, Moscow launched its biggest bombing campaign against Ukrainian gas facilities since the start of the 2022 invasion, halting 60 percent of the production of the country’s main source of fuel for heating.
Kyiv has regularly targeted Russian fuel depots, oil refineries and other energy facilities, in what it says is retribution for Moscow’s attacks.
More than half of the households and businesses in the occupied Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine, were cut off from electricity after an “unprecedented” Ukrainian attack on two power plants, said a Moscow-backed governor, who did not exclude rolling power outages.
Ukraine on Tuesday said Russian strikes killed a teenager and hit railway infrastructure and a public TV building in the city of Dnipro.
Energy facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions were also damaged in the attacks.
While the Russian army continued advancing on the front, claiming two more villages in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday.
Ukraine says Russia has repeatedly demonstrated it does not want to halt its invasion, by outlining unacceptable demands that Kyiv to cede more territory and effectively capitulate to Moscow.
