KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted Sunday (Aug 24) that a gathering with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin remained “the simplest manner ahead” as the 2 sides alternate prisoners and the nation celebrated Independence Day.
Kyiv’s basic stated that Ukrainian troops had recaptured three villages in its Donetsk area that had fallen beneath Russian management. And Ukraine launched drone strikes on Russia, triggering a hearth at a nuclear energy plant.
After a push by US President Donald Trump to dealer a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia on Friday dominated out any speedy Putin-Zelenskyy assembly.
However Zelenskyy stated Sunday that the “format of talks between leaders is the simplest manner ahead”, renewing requires a bilateral summit with Putin.
Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier accused Western nations of searching for “a pretext to dam negotiations” and condemned Zelenskyy for “demanding a right away assembly in any respect prices”.
Zelenskyy, talking at a ceremony attended by Western officers together with US envoy Keith Kellogg, whom he awarded with the Ukrainian Order of Benefit, vowed to “to push Russia to peace”.
Additionally Sunday, Ukraine and Russia stated they’d every despatched again 146 prisoners of conflict and civilians within the newest of a collection of swaps that stay one of many few areas of cooperation between the rivals.
Press freedom group Reporters With out Borders (RSF) welcomed the discharge of two Ukrainian journalists, Dmytro Khyliuk and Mark Kaliush, denouncing “their abductions and the abuse they suffered in detention”.
