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By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
ANKARA/ISTANBUL/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday he is open to a ceasefire with Russia but warned that Moscow seems “not serious” about peace talks.
Yet Zelenskyy told the press in Ankara that the mandate of the Ukrainian delegation led by his Defence Minister Rustem Umerov is to discuss a ceasefire during a meeting with Russian envoys in Turkey.
He added that a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin “could be skipped” if a ceasefire agreement between the two countries is reached during technical talks in Istanbul.
He said that to show U.S. President Donald J. Trump that Ukraine “is seeking an end to the conflict,” he agreed to send officials from Ankara to Istanbul, which is more than 400 kilometers (almost 300 miles) away.
These are the first direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow since March 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor the previous month.
More than 1 million people, many of them soldiers, are believed to have been killed in Europe’s most significant conflict since the Second World War.
However, Zelenskyy also said at a press event in Ankara that if Moscow failed to show any willingness to engage in ceasefire talks, then other nations should put more political and economic pressure on Russia and impose more sanctions.
“Russia does not feel that it needs to end [the war], which means there is not enough political, economic, and other pressure on the Russian Federation,” he stressed.
“And so we ask, if there is no ceasefire, if there are no serious decisions … we ask for appropriate sanctions.”
Analysts say Moscow may seek to win time to change the battlefield’s reality.
Despite more than three years of fighting and having a much larger army, Russia still has about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory. It also annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula.
Among its demands for an end to the war, Russia seeks to keep its captured regions, a pledge that Ukraine won’t join the NATO military alliance, and no western forces on Ukrainian territory, according to well-informed sources.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have agreed to a ceasefire that was to begin Friday afternoon, Worthy News learned.
At least 10 people, including four children, were injured in a Russian strike on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian authorities said Friday. In southern Ukraine, the State Emergency Service reported that one person was killed and four others were injured in a separate Russian attack on the Odesa region.
President Donald Trump signed the temporary peace deal with Iran ahead of schedule Wednesday at the Palace of Versailles in France, kicking off negotiations over a final nuclear deal.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s statement following the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the United States is being viewed by analysts not as an embrace of peace, but as a carefully crafted declaration that preserves Tehran’s revolutionary posture while allowing the regime to regroup.
The United States imposed new sanctions Thursday on individuals and entities linked to Hezbollah, accusing them of using political and financial influence to obstruct Lebanon’s peace process and delay the Iran-backed group’s disarmament.
Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow since the war began, hitting a key oil refinery and other targets around the Russian capital, leaving at least one person dead and numerous others injured, Russian officials said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Southeast Asian leaders in Kazan this week as Moscow moved to deepen ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and promote its vision of a “multipolar world order” aimed at countering U.S. global dominance.
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