Ukrainian Zelensky draws up “comprehensive plan” to end war with Russia | News on the Russia-Ukraine war

As the war rages on and the number of casualties rises, Ukraine’s president says a plan to end the 28-month conflict is “the diplomatic path we are working on.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is working on a “comprehensive plan” on how to end the war with Russia from Kyiv’s perspective.

“It is very important for us to present a plan to end the war that is supported by the majority of the world,” the Ukrainian president said on Friday at a press conference in Kyiv together with Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar.

“This is the diplomatic path we are working on.”

There are currently no negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, and according to public statements by Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two sides appear to be further apart than ever on the terms of a possible peace settlement.

Ukraine has repeatedly stated that Russia must withdraw its troops from its internationally recognized territory – including the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014 – before peace talks can begin.

Meanwhile, Putin, who launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, is effectively demanding that Ukraine surrender by vacating even more territories in the east and south of the country that Russia currently occupies.

Earlier this month, Zelensky hosted a major international summit in Switzerland – to which Russia was not invited – to rally support for Ukraine’s position.

“We don’t have too much time”

More than 90 countries sent their heads of state and government and senior officials to the two-day summit, and a large majority agreed to a final communiqué stressing the need for any agreement to respect Ukraine’s “territorial integrity.”

But some of the key participating powers, including India, disagreed, and others, including Russia’s ally China, boycotted the summit in protest at Moscow’s lack of invitation.

Russian troops are slowly advancing on the battlefield and claimed to have captured another small frontline village on Friday.

Moscow currently occupies about 25 percent of Ukraine and in 2022 claimed to have annexed four more regions over which it does not have full control.

At an EU Council summit in Brussels on Thursday, Zelenskyj said he would present a “detailed plan” to end the war within a few months.

“We don’t have much time left,” he said, pointing to the high number of casualties among soldiers and civilians.

Anger at the USA

Russia warned the United States on Friday that its drone reconnaissance flights over the Black Sea could lead to a “direct” military clash, a threat it made just days after angrily blaming Washington for a missile attack on Crimea.

Ukraine’s attack on the Russian-annexed port city of Sevastopol on Sunday sparked anger in Moscow, which accused Kyiv of using ATACMS missiles from the United States armed with cluster munitions.

Four people, including two children, were killed when rocket fragments hit the city. The Kremlin’s Foreign Ministry called it a “bloody crime.”

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had observed “an increased frequency of strategic flights of US unmanned aerial vehicles over the waters of the Black Sea” around Crimea.

Drones would “conduct reconnaissance” and provide information for the Western-supplied Ukrainian weapons with which Kiev plans to attack Russian targets, it said.

Such flights “increase the risk of direct confrontation” between NATO and Russia, and the army has been ordered to prepare an “operational response,” the Defense Ministry added.

The United States regularly conducts drone flights over the Black Sea. The operations, it says, are carried out in neutral airspace and in accordance with international law.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Friday that the military destroyed the Russian space communications center in Moscow-occupied Crimea in an attack this week.

In a statement on Telegram, the ministry described the target as a valuable military component in the Russian troops’ satellite communications and navigation system. There was no immediate reaction from Moscow.