The Ukrainian president,
Volodymyr Zelensky
, once again ruled out this Sunday any negotiations with the Russian president
Vladimir Putin
, as long as he does not accept his defeat in the war, during a press conference with international media held on the weekend in which
the war between Russia and Ukraine
enters its third year.
“Is it possible to talk to a deaf person?
Is it possible to talk to a person who kills his opponents?
”Zelensky said about the possibility of seeking a negotiated solution to the war.
The Ukrainian president insisted on his Peace Formula - a document that demands, among other things, the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian territory - as the
only possible negotiating framework
.
“We will offer him a way (Putin) to
accept that he has lost the war, and that it was a big mistake
,” said Zelensky, who hopes to hold an international summit in Switzerland this spring so that as many countries as possible give their support to your document.
Once the support of these countries is obtained, Zelensky explained, the document will be presented to Putin as was done with the grain agreement sponsored by Turkey and the United Nations.
The Russian president agreed between July 2022 and July 2023 to allow the transit of grain through the Black Sea from Ukrainian ports, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on his agricultural sector.
He also said that his country's victory over Russia
"depends" on Western support
and said he was "confident" that the United States will approve the currently blocked military aid package.
"Whether Ukraine loses, whether it is very difficult for us and whether there are large numbers of casualties depends on you, on our partners, on the Western world," he said, before adding that he is "sure that the vote in the US Congress will be positive".
Zelensky also stated today that
31,000 of his soldiers died in the war with Russia
, thus offering the first official balance of Ukraine's military losses.
"Thirty-one thousand Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000 as Putin and his circle of liars say. But each of these losses is a big loss for us," he declared at a press conference in Kiev with occasion of the second anniversary of the beginning of the war.
The number, he explained, does not include wounded or missing soldiers.
The Ukrainian president, meanwhile, did not want to give that number of wounded Ukrainian soldiers so as not to help Russia know the number of Ukrainians who have gone to the front.
Regarding the number of Russian soldiers killed in this war,
he clarified that there were 180,000
.
Another half a million, he added, were wounded in the fighting.
The Ukrainian president also said that “tens of thousands of civilians” died or were murdered after being tortured in the territories occupied by Russia.
Zelensky explained that the exact number will only be known when the war ends.
With information from agencies.