Kyiv: Ukraine has proposed a temporary ceasefire with Russia to facilitate talks during planned visits by US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday during his televised evening address.
“There will be no airstrikes on our part,” Zelensky said, calling on Russia to reciprocate and halt its own airstrikes for the duration of the negotiations.
Discussions over a visit by the two US envoys were still underway Friday. If confirmed, it would mark the first visit to Kyiv for both US negotiators. A senior Ukrainian official said the pair are expected to arrive in Kyiv on Sunday. A source familiar with the plans said Russia opposes the visit and has sought to persuade the US team to change its itinerary.
Renewed diplomatic efforts, have failed to deliver any significant advances. Negotiators say that a number of seemingly irreconcilable differences remain between Moscow and Kyiv on how to end the war, now in its fifth year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that his country will not accept a temporary ceasefire unless there are concrete steps to advance negotiations and recognition of Russia\s battlefield gains. Ukrainian sources say that his stance requires that their country surrender additional territory, while Kyiv has rejected and
Earlier, a Russian drone struck the headquarters of Ukraine’s security services in Kyiv,
Zelensky said he had instructed the military to deliver an “appropriate, tangible response” to the strike, while Ukraine’s foreign minister Andriy Sybiga described it as a “major escalation”.
