Zelenskyy urged a meeting with Putin and said he was ready to talk about the occupied territories

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has affirmed this Monday that “the end of the war” will not be possible without a meeting “in any format” with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and has assured that he is willing to talk “about the territories busy”.

“I think that at this moment, without a meeting with the president of the Russian Federation in any format, and I have been repeating and proposing it for several years, without this meeting you cannot really understand what they are willing to do to stop the war”, the Ukrainian president pointed out.

In this sense, he has assured that in this possible meeting with Putin “he is willing to raise questions about the occupied territories”. “They are relevant to us and very important. But I am sure that this decision will not be made at that meeting, ”he said, as reported by the Ukrainian news agencies.

For this reason, he has insisted that “the first step towards security guarantees and a ceasefire” must first be taken, the Ukrainian president said. “This long enough process will be decided by the Council and the people of Ukraine,” he added.

The president of Ukraine has previously said that, in any case, the commitments made with Russia must be ratified by the Ukrainian citizens through a referendum. “I explained to all the negotiating groups, when all these changes are discussed, and they can be historic (…) we will reach a referendum,” he said.

The heads of Russian and Ukrainian diplomacy met in Ankara on March 10 to reach a ceasefire agreement, although the negotiations did not produce results.

Russia has set as a condition to stop its military offensive the recognition of the annexation of Crimea, the independence of Donetsk and Lugansk and the neutrality of Ukraine. This last proposal, the renunciation of joining NATO, is the only one that Kyiv would accept.