Ukraine reacted with gloom and dismay on Tuesday to the assembly between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying he would by no means settle for Russia’s ultimatums.
The high-stakes negotiations between the 2 delegations obtained beneath means in Riyadh simply hours after Russia attacked Ukraine with dozens of drones. Not less than two folks had been killed and 26 injured in strikes throughout the nation.
One drone hit the highest flooring of a high-rise residential constructing within the central metropolis of Dolynska, within the Kirovohrad area. A mom and her two youngsters had been injured and brought to hospital. “A troublesome evening,” stated the native governor, Andriy Raikovych.
Quickly after the talks concluded in Riyadh, air raid sirens wailed throughout the capital, Kyiv. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians had been advised by textual content message to hunt shelter due to a risk from Russian ballistic missiles.
Talking in Ankara after a gathering with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Zelenskyy stated Ukraine wouldn’t settle for the outcomes of talks on finish the struggle with Russia that had been held “behind Ukraine’s again”.
“It feels just like the US is now discussing the ultimatum that Putin set in the beginning of the full-scale struggle,” Zelenskyy advised reporters. He added: “As soon as once more, choices about Ukraine are being made with out Ukraine. I ponder why they consider Ukraine would settle for all these ultimatums now if we refused them on the most troublesome second?”
Zelenskyy additionally stated he would search the return of occupied japanese and southern cities and villages by way of diplomatic means, emphasising: “They are going to be Ukrainian. There may be no compromise.”
Reuters reported that Zelenskyy has postponed a go to to Saudi Arabia deliberate for Wednesday to keep away from giving the US-Russia talks “legitimacy”.
It was absurd for Moscow to speak about peace whereas killing Ukrainians, stated Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the top of Zelenskyy’s workplace. The newest salvo of 176 drones fired at Ukraine represented Russia’s precise “negotiating place”, he posted.
With out criticising the Trump administration instantly, he stated the high-level US-Russia talks had not been correctly ready, including that they had been merely a discussion board for extra Russian “ultimatums”.
“Encouragement slightly than coercion, a voluntary and weird renunciation of power in favour of disheartening and unmotivated appeasement of the aggressor,” Podolyak wrote, summing up Kyiv’s unfavorable response.
There may be widespread scepticism that Russia would abide by any ceasefire deal until it was underpinned by safety ensures – from the US and different western powers. Podolyak stated there was no level in having a “faux peace” that may result in “an inevitable continuation of the struggle”.
Ukrainians have bitter recollections of two offers signed with Russia within the Belarus capital, Minsk, after Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and started a covert invasion of the japanese Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Russia repeatedly violated each ceasefires.
There are fears {that a} fast deal between Washington and Moscow would quantity to Minsk 3 – one other settlement that Russia would swiftly break. Talking on the Munich Safety Convention final weekend, Zelenskyy stated Russia was able to increase its invasion and “wage struggle” in opposition to Nato.
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Extra instantly, there have been considerations {that a} Trump-Putin deal would demand that Ukraine maintain elections instantly after a ceasefire got here into drive, and earlier than any closing settlement was reached. The aim, Ukrainian commentators urged, could be to exchange Zelenskyy with a weaker chief, or perhaps a pro-Russian candidate.
Ukraine shouldn’t be obliged to carry elections beneath martial regulation. Few Ukrainians suppose they’re sensible at a time when Russia’s invasion has pressured hundreds of thousands of residents to flee overseas and when troopers are combating and dying on the frontline. European embassies in Kyiv agree.
The White Home excluded Kyiv and European nations from its direct talks with Russia, the primary bilateral contact between the 2 sides since earlier than Moscow’s 2022 invasion.
Ukraine’s former international minister Dmytro Kuleba stated he didn’t anticipate a truce with Russia any time quickly, telling the BBC: “Peace shouldn’t be even seen on the horizon.” Kuleba stated it was in Ukraine’s curiosity to withstand US strain for a speedy resolution and to as an alternative interact with Trump over a sustained interval.
Kuleba stated: “Peace isn’t seen for one easy cause: as a result of Putin nonetheless believes that he can outwit everybody, that point is on his facet, destiny is on his facet, the west has wavered, America is retreating, Europe shouldn’t be in a position to take the sector as an alternative of America, or … shouldn’t be able to placed on the captain’s armband.”
He added: “The important thing query now could be, truly, the place is Putin on this scheme? For my part, he believes that he’ll win. Victory for him is all of Ukraine. He didn’t come for some piece of land. He got here for Ukraine.”
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