Kyiv: President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Ukraine would not accept any bilateral agreement on his fate reached by Moscow and Washington without the participation of kyiv, calling Europe to sit at the table in the negotiations to end to war.
The Ukrainian chief made the comments in a nuclear power plant on his way to the Munich security conference, one day after US President Donald Trump spoke to Russian chief Vladimir Putin and announced the start of negotiations.
“We, as an independent country, simply will not be able to accept any agreement without us,” Zelensky told journalists.
Putin’s call and the remarks of Trump’s defense secretary, who said kyiv could not join NATO or a return to the Ukrainian borders before 2014 is unrealistic, made the alarm in Europe That the White House could seek to conclude an agreement with Russia without them.
“Today, it is important that everything does not happen according to Putin’s plan, in which he wants to do everything to make his bilateral negotiations (with the United States),” said Zelensky. He added that it was important for the United States and Ukraine to set up a plan to end the war before speaking to the Russian part.
He pushed Trump before Trump met Putin, although the American president said on Wednesday that he expected to meet Putin in the future, probably in Saudi Arabia.
Ukraine said that she was working on a meeting of Zelensky-Trump, but nothing has been announced so far.
Zelensky also said that he had not discussed the question of NATO membership during his phone call with Trump, although he said he knew that the United States was against the idea.
He also tried to play the meaning of Trump who calls Putin before him on Wednesday, saying that it did not look like a marker of Washington’s real priorities, but adding that it was nevertheless “unpleasant”.
While the third anniversary of the invasion of Russia is approaching, Moscow controls a fifth of Ukraine and has been moving slowly in the East for months, while the smallest army of kyiv has grapples with the shortages of labor And try to hold a piece of territory in western Russia.
