Zelensky said he is ready to meet with Putin for negotiations

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine takes peace negotiations with Russia seriously, and that it would be better if talks with the Russian side were conducted at the level of national leaders.

Zelensky said this in an interview with Reuters.

“Ukrainians take negotiations seriously. We believe that talks are necessary, and better at the level of leaders — we are ready for that. The Russians want an ultimatum-style end to the fighting, so that Ukraine accepts their terms. They want the Ukrainian Armed Forces to withdraw on their own from the territory we control in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”

According to the president, both Russians and Ukrainians understand how much time Russia would need to seize that territory, at the cost of losses of 28,000, 30,000, or 35,000 soldiers per month.

“And it is still not certain that they would capture it. They could bury anywhere from 300,000 to 1 million of their soldiers there. They do not value human life, but they do understand that this means money. All of this involves contracts, and that means 300,000 or 1 million additional coffins going back to Russia,” Zelensky said.

He added that the Kremlin does not fully understand the public reaction — whether people will get used to it or not.

“That is why they are looking for this kind of dialogue with the Americans: ‘Tell the Ukrainians there is nothing to fight for.’ We know this Russian rhetoric very well: ‘There is nothing to fight for. Six thousand square kilometers.’ We explain to our partners, and in my view quite convincingly, why that is not true,” Zelensky said.