Zelensky renews offer to meet Putin for face-to-face talks to end war

Irish Examiner

22-07-2025

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday renewed his offer to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, but hopes of any progress were low as delegations from both governments prepared to hold a third round of direct talks.
Russian forces, meanwhile, pounded four Ukrainian cities in night-time attacks that officials said killed a child.
Mr Putin has spurned Mr Zelensky's previous offers of a face-to-face meeting to end Europe's biggest conflict since the Second World War.
But the Ukrainian leader insists that lower-level delegations like the ones expected for talks in Istanbul on Wednesday do not have the political heft to stop the fighting.
A resident looks at damaged cars in a residential area following Russia's drone attack in Odesa (Michael Shtekel/AP)
Each side's demands for ending Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbour, launched on February 24 2022, remain far apart.
'Ukraine never wanted this war, and it is Russia that must end the war that it itself started,' Mr Zelensky said in a Telegram post.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that 'a lot of work needs to be done before having a detailed discussion on a possibility of high-level meetings,' effectively scotching hopes of a summit any time soon.
He didn't provide a date for the Istanbul talks.
Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Odesa (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
Ukrainian and Western officials have accused the Kremlin of stalling in talks in order for its bigger army to capture more Ukrainian land. Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukraine.
Russia, meanwhile, is driving hard to break through at eastern and north-eastern points on the 620-mile front line.
It is also firing upwards of 700 drones a night at Ukrainian cities.
Russian forces struck four Ukrainian cities in three regions in overnight attacks, killing a child and wounding at least 41 other people, officials said.
From dusk on Monday evening, Russia struck the Ukrainian regions of Sumy in the northeast, Odesa in the south and eastern Kramatorsk.
In Kramatorsk, a glide bomb hit an apartment building, starting a fire, according to the head of the city's military administration, Oleksandr Honcharenko.
A boy born in 2015 was killed, local officials said, without giving his exact age. Five other people were reported wounded.
The Sumy region came under multiple waves of attacks, the regional military administration reported. A drone hit a gas station in the town of Putyvl, wounding four people, including a five-year-old boy, it said.
A second drone strike hit the same location less than two hours later, wounding seven other people.
After dark, two powerful Russian glide bombs were dropped on Sumy city, wounding 13 people, including a six-year-old boy.
Russia's defence ministry, meanwhile, said Tuesday that air defenses downed 35 Ukrainian long-range drones over several regions overnight, including three over the Moscow region.