Ukraine has proposed a fresh round of peace talks with Russia following weeks of relentless missile strikes, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
In his evening address to the nation, the Ukrainian leader said ‘everything should be done to achieve a ceasefire’ and that the pace of negotiations should increase.
It comes less than 24 hours after NATO was forced to scramble war planes over Poland in response to a fresh wave of attacks on key strategic cities in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Moscow was also targeted by strikes for the third night in a row – with explosions heard across several of the city’s suburbs.
The proposed negotiations would take place next week and come after negotiations stalled in early June, Zelensky announced.
The previous two rounds of talks in Istanbul between Moscow and Kyiv have failed to make any progress towards agreeing a ceasefire.
They instead resulted in yielding large-scale prisoner exchanges and deals to return the bodies of killed soldiers.
‘Security Council Secretary Umerov also reported that he had proposed the next meeting with the Russian side for next week,’ Zelensky said in his evening address.
‘The momentum of the negotiations must be stepped up,’ he added.
Ukraine has proposed a new round of peace talks with Russia following weeks of relentless missile strikes, President Zelensky has said
Pictured: A residential building in Odesa that was destroyed overnight in a Russian strike
Vladimir Putin is pictured attending a meeting in Moscow on July 18
Zelensky also reiterated his readiness to have a face-to-face sit down with Putin.
‘A meeting at the leadership level is needed to truly ensure peace – lasting peace,’ he said.
At talks last month, Russia outlined a list of hardline demands, including calls for Ukraine to cede more territory and to reject all forms of Western military support.
Kyiv dismissed them as unacceptable and at the time questioned the point of further negotiations if Moscow was not willing to make concessions.
The Kremlin said it was ready to continue talks with Ukraine after US President Donald Trump gave Russia 50 days to strike a peace deal or face sanctions.
Trump also pledged to supply Kyiv with new military aid, sponsored by NATO allies, as its cities suffer ever-increasing Russian aerial attacks.
Earlier this month Trump announced he would send Patriot air defense system to Ukraine to bolster the country’s defence capabilities.
The decision came as the US-president blasted Putin as ‘two faced’, saying that ‘he talks nice, then bombs everybody’.
Ukrainian emergency service workers extinguish a fire in a residential building following a strike
One woman was killed and three people were wounded after a nine-storey apartment block was struck in Odesa
Trump said: ‘We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people.
‘He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening. But there’s a little bit of a problem there. I don’t like it.
‘We basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated military equipment.
‘They are going to pay us 100 percent for that, and that’s the way we want it.’
Trump’s deployment of the missiles marked a U-turn from how he campaigned on an ‘America First’ platform.
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