Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia has to accept the cessation before holding peace conversations

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed Vladimir Putin’s call to direct peace conversations, but said that Kyiv will only meet once Moscow accepts a 30 -day unconditional cessation from Monday.

The Kremlin, however, insisted that he would not stop the Russian President’s invasion of Ukraine President Ukraine in Ukraine without talks on the “initial reasons” of the conflict.

Competitive proposals indicate that Ukraine and Russia remain very separate from how to start a peace process, as they are found by the goodwill of the President of the United States, Donald Trump.

“We hope that Russia confirms a cessation of the fire, full, durable and reliable, from tomorrow, May 12, and Ukraine is ready to fulfill,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on social media Sunday.

He called Putin’s proposal “a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to end up with the war.”

“The whole world has been waiting for this for a long time. And the first step in ending any war is a cessation of fire,” he said.

On Sunday morning, Putin offered to hold unoreote negotiations in Istanbul on Thursday, but rejected the proposal for the cessation of the 30 -day Ukraine fire.

Although Russia and Ukraine made it clear that neither party was ready to meet unless the other agreed to have conversations about their terms, Trump seemed to house the start of a peace process after Putin’s statement.

“A potentially fantastic day for Russia and Ukraine!” The President of the United States wrote on social media. “Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved, as this never ends” Bloodbath “, in hope.

Putin resumed combat operations in Ukraine immediately after insisting that he would only have conversations over a cessation of fire after the main demands of Russia were fulfilled to end the war. After talking to Kremlin journalists in the early hours of Sunday, the sirens were nailed to Ukraine, as Russian drones attacked goals in various regions.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy counselor, told State TV that Moscow wanted to have conversations in Istanbul based on the failure of peace process that was held in the first months of the war in 2022, as well as the “real situation (…) on the ground”, where Russia keeps his hand superior to the battlefield.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Putin that Turkey was willing to host peace conversations between Russia and Ukraine, said Erdoğan’s office.

Maria Zakharova, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that Ukraine had “read” Putin’s statement. “Putin said it very clearly: negotiations on the initial motifs (for war) first, then a conversation about a ceasefire,” he told the state of Newswire Tass.

Russia’s demands include a bar about NATO membership in Ukraine and recognizing the annexation of Putin from four regions of Southeast, as well as the end of Western military support in Kiev. The return to Istanbul talks would also involve Ukraine to compromise neutrality, accept caps to their military and accept Moscow’s demands to protect the Russian language in the country.

Ukraine has said that these terms would end with their existence as a modern state.

The Russian counter -offer is a rejection of the 30 -day fire cessation proposal on Saturday after the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom visited Kiev to meet Zelenskyy.

Air defenses scored the morning silence in Kiev a few hours after the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom came out by train from the Ukrainian capital.

European partners agreed that if Russia rejected a high and unconditional fire of 30 days, the strictest sanctions would be adopted against the banking and energy sectors, said Elysée on Saturday evening.

French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists on Sunday that Putin’s response was “a first step, but not enough”, adding that it was a means to “not respond” to fire cessation proposals.

“We must keep us firm with the North -Americans to say that the cessation of the fire is unconditional and that we can then discuss the rest,” he said from a train during the night in Przemyśl, Poland, after leaving Kiev.

“It is unacceptable to the Ukrainians because they cannot accept parallel discussions as they continue to be bombed.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also urged Russia to accept an immediate cessation.

In a publication on the X social media platform on Sunday he wrote: “In response to our call, the Russians have proposed peace conversations from May 15. The world, however, is waiting for a univocal decision on an immediate and unconditional cessation. Ukraine is ready. There are no more victims!”

Additional Raphael Minder and Anne-Sylvaine Chassanya reports