Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Kyiv hoped to achieve concrete results in talks on resolving the war with Russia this year, but that much depended on how the United States approached Moscow.
Zelenskiy was speaking alongside Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin after two days of US-led talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi.
“We are living through these massive attacks. Of course, we want to get results by the end of this year, and of course, we will be doing everything to make that happen,” Zelenskiy told a press conference.
“A lot will depend today on the format of the dialogue of the American and Russian sides tomorrow… I believe it is also very important for the Americans…to achieve a result this year, in my view, given what we are seeing happening. And it seems to me that they really do want this very much.”
The US-led talks, the first to take place since February, produced an agreement on a major release of prisoners of war, but little else in the way of concrete announcements on moves to end the war.
The two US presidential envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are due to travel to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday and will then fly from there to meet Zelenskiy in Dublin.
Kushner said there was no trust between the two sides but described the Abu Dhabi talks as “a good first step”.
Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said the talks had been tough, with Russia’s delegation arriving with “strict directives”, but they produced “good momentum” towards reaching a solution before the end of the year.
Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, told Russian state TV he thought a peace deal was closer after the talks but added that much depended on Ukraine and the US stance.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, )
