Ukraine's Zelenskyy will be waiting for Russian leader Putin in Ankara for talks on Thursday
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KYIV: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will be waiting for Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Ankara on Thursday (May 15) for talks.
Putin hasn't yet said whether he will be at the talks, which US President Donald Trump has urged the two sides to attend as part of Washington’s effort to stop the 3-year war.
Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv that he will be in Ankara on Thursday to conduct the negotiations.
He will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the two will wait for Putin to arrive, he said.
Zelenskyy said he would “do everything to agree on a ceasefire, because it is with (Putin) that I must negotiate a ceasefire, as only he can decide on it”.
The Ukrainian leader added that if the Russian leader doesn’t show up, European and US leaders should follow through with threats of additional and heavy sanctions against Russia.
Washington has been applying strong pressure on both sides to come to the table since Trump took office in January with a promise to end the war.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will attend the planned meeting between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey, and there could be good results, says US President Donald Trump.
European leaders have threatened to impose massive sanctions - that would need US support - on Russia's President Vladimir Putin if he did not agree to a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine within days.
That pledge failed to move Putin, who instead called for direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz repeated the threat of sanctions on Tuesday, saying that "if there is no real progress this week, we want to work together at the European level for a significant tightening of sanctions".
French President Emmanuel Macron also said he was in favour of imposing new sanctions on Russia in the coming days if Moscow failed to agree to a ceasefire, with financial services and oil and gas as possible targets.
16 SANCTIONS PACKAGES IMPOSED ON RUSSIA BY THE EU
Diplomats say, however, that after 16 sanction packages imposed on Russia by the EU over the war in Ukraine, it is increasingly difficult to get the necessary unanimity among the bloc's 27 members to pass major new measures.
Hungary, which maintains close ties with Russia, has often blocked or sought to water down major new sanctions on Moscow. Diplomats say only pressure from Trump's administration might make Budapest change tack, but there has been no sign of that so far.
Some officials have resurrected ideas, such as lowering a US$60 price cap on Russian oil, agreed by the Group of Seven nations. That would require Washington's support, though, and there has been no change in the last two years despite the group's pledge to periodically review the level.
Fighting has been going on for more than three years in Ukraine, since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Military analysts say that both sides are preparing a spring-summer campaign on the battlefield, where a war of attrition has killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along a roughly 1,000km front line.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Monday that Russia is “quickly replenishing front-line units with new recruits to maintain the battlefield initiative”.
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