Ukraine’s president has said that the war can only be resolved through diplomacy, despite the current suspension of negotiations.
“Discussions between Ukraine and Russia will certainly take place,” Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with a Ukrainian TV channel.
“Under what format I don’t know, with intermediaries, without them, in a broader group, at the presidential level. But the war will be bloody, there will be fighting and it will only put an end to diplomacy”.
And he added: “There are things that can only be reached at the negotiating table. We want everything to come back [to as it was before] but Russia does not want that,” he said.
The last talks between the two sides took place on April 22, according to Russian news agencies.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of not wanting to continue talks to end the fighting.
During the interview, Zelenskiy spoke about a document on security guarantees for his country. Although a bilateral discussion with Russia would be held at the same time, the document would be signed by “Ukrainian friends and partners, without Moscow,” he added.
However, Zelenskiy warned that the precondition for resuming negotiations with Moscow was that Russia did not kill Ukrainian troops defending the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
“The most important thing for me is to save the maximum number of people and soldiers,” he said.
On Friday, Russia claimed to have taken full control of the besieged city of Mariupol, in what has been described as Moscow’s biggest prize since it invaded Ukraine in February, after the last group of Ukrainian soldiers hiding in the city surrendered. Azovstal steelworks. The move marked the end of the three-month siege of the defenders’ last stronghold in the city.
“The underground structures in Azovstal where the militants were hiding are now under the full control of the Russian armed forces,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that in total 2,439 Ukrainian fighters had surrendered.
Hours before the Russian announcement, Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian military had told the defenders they could go out and save their lives and would most likely all leave in the next few days.
In a live video posted on Telegram, Denys Prokopenko, the Azov regiment commander who led the defense of the factory, said only the dead remained.
“The military high command has given the order to save the lives of the soldiers in our garrison and stop defending the city,” he said. “Now I hope that soon the families and the whole of Ukraine will be able to bury their fighters with honors.”
Ukraine hopes to exchange surrendering Azovstal soldiers for Russian prisoners. But in Donetsk, the pro-Kremlin authorities are threatening to put some of them on trial.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, Russia’s Gazprom halted gas exports to neighboring Finland, the Finnish gas system operator said, after Helsinki angered Moscow by applying to join NATO.
Finland, along with neighboring Sweden, this week broke its historic military non-alignment and applied to join NATO, after public and political support for the alliance soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow warned Finland that any application for NATO membership would be “a serious mistake with far-reaching consequences.”
Most of the gas used in Finland comes from Russia, but the fuel only accounts for about 5% of its annual energy consumption.
On the ground in Ukraine, fierce fighting continued in the eastern Donbas region, where, Zelenskiy said, Russian troops “completely ruined the cities of Rubizhne, Volnovakha, just as they did Mariupol,” adding that the Russians were “trying to do the same thing”. the same with Severodonetsk and many other cities.”
And while the US Congress this week approved a $40bn (£32bn) aid package, including funds to upgrade Ukraine’s armored vehicle fleet and air defense system, Moscow said on Saturday that it had destroyed a large shipment of American and European weapons, using seaborne weapons. launched Kalibr cruise missiles that allegedly hit the Malin railway station, northwest of kyiv, in the Zhytomyr region.
There was no Ukrainian or independent confirmation of the success of the strike.
Reference-www.theguardian.com