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Zelensky says US has offered to host Russia-Ukraine talks in Florida: ‘They want to do everything by June’
Russia currently occupies around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and is seeking further control over key eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the United States wants his country’s war with Russia, which has been going on for almost four years, to end by June this year. He added that the US has offered to host negotiations between Kyiv and the Kremlin in Florida next week.
"The United States has proposed for the first time that the two negotiating teams -- Ukraine and Russia -- meet in the United States, probably in Miami, in a week's time," said Zelensky while talking to reporters in remarks which were made public early Saturday, reported news agency AFP.
"They say that they want to do everything by June," he added.
This comes after Ukraine and Russia have already held two rounds of US-brokered negotiations in Abu Dhabi since January. While the two sides agreed on a major prisoner exchange during the talks, friction over the issue of territory, which is a major point of contention between them, remained unresolved.
Russia currently occupies around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and is seeking further control over key eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine as part of the peace deal, a proposition thoroughly rejected by Kyiv even though Moscow has threatened to use force if negotiations over it fail.
Russia hits Ukraine’s power facilities
The potential talks between Ukraine and Russia come amid the latter’s continued strikes on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, as per Zelensky. In a video posted on Saturday, Zelensky said that a night before, “the Russians struck facilities critical to the operation of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants”.
“Today, units at Ukraine’s NPPs reduced power generation, and one unit was automatically shut down. This is a level of attack that no terrorist in the world has ever dared, and Russia must feel the world's response,” he said.
“Russia must show that not only such strikes and the war matter to it, but also the ongoing negotiations that are supposed to deliver results,” he added.
(With inputs from AFP)
