Zelenskyy Says Ukraine Pushes Toward Possible Talks with Putin

(MENAFN) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Ukraine has helped push Russian President Vladimir Putin “a little” closer to agreeing to a potential meeting, though the format of any future negotiations has yet to be determined, according to reports.

Zelenskyy stated that Putin had recently indicated a willingness to engage in what he described as real meetings. “Now, Putin himself says that he is finally ready for real meetings.
We pushed him a little toward this, and we have long been ready for such meetings ourselves -- now a format must be found,” he said, adding that “this war must be ended, and security must be guaranteed reliably,” as quoted by the presidential press service.

His remarks followed comments from Putin on Saturday, in which the Russian president reportedly said he was prepared to meet Zelenskyy in a third country, but only for the purpose of finalizing a peace agreement to end the ongoing conflict, now in its fourth year.

Zelenskyy also said preparations are underway for a large-scale prisoner exchange involving 1,000 individuals from each side. He stated that Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters had already submitted lists of 1,000 prisoners of war to Russia.

At the same time, Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of continuing military activity despite a declared ceasefire last week. He said there had been more than 150 assault operations, over 100 shelling incidents, and nearly 10,000 kamikaze drone strikes in the past two days, as reported on Telegram.

He added that, while large-scale missile and air attacks had not been recorded recently, he claimed that Russian forces were not observing the ceasefire in practice.

MENAFN11052026000045017640ID1111095019