Speaking in Russian, Zelensky told a group of Russian freelance journalists on Sunday that Kyiv was ready to meet with Moscow on some of its demands, provided the changes were put to a referendum and third parties promised to protect Ukraine. “Security guarantees and neutrality, the non-nuclear status of our state – we are ready to do it. This is the most important point [ . . . ] “They started the war because of that,” Zelensky said. The Russian media censor ordered the four journalists not to publish the interview and promised to investigate them – although he had already blocked a website being edited by one of them and shut down a TV station previously run by another. Zelensky said Ukraine’s main goal was to end the war as soon as possible and force Russian forces to withdraw before Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion on February 24.

He said he was “99.9 percent sure” that the Russian president believed Ukraine would wait for the invasion with “flowers and smiles” – to the point of sending troops in a parade dress to a victory party in Kyiv apparently scheduled for on the third or fourth day of the war. However, Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to hold separate talks on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the eastern border region of Donbass, where more than 14,000 people lost their lives in a slow-moving separatist conflict. involving Russian proxies who broke out shortly afterwards. . “I understand that it is not possible to force Russia to leave the territory completely – this will lead to World War III,” Zelensky said. “That is why I say this is a compromise. “Go back to where it all started and then we will try to solve the difficult issue of Donbass.” Delegations from Ukraine and Russia are set to meet in Ankara on Monday for three days of talks aimed at ending a month-long Putin invasion. I understand that it is not possible to force Russia to leave the territory completely – this will lead to World War III. That is why I say that this is a compromise. Go back to where it all started and then we will try to solve the difficult issue of Donbass However, Zelensky downplayed comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Ukraine and Russia were close to a four-point agreement. He said peace could only be achieved through a meeting with Putin. “So we meet, we make an agreement and that is enough – we sign an agreement, we seal it or we sign it with blood. This is enough to start the withdrawal process. “Troops must be withdrawn, everyone is signing the guarantees, and that is it,” Zelenski said. In exchange for giving up its desire to join NATO – an ambition reflected in Ukraine’s constitution – Kyiv wants the new agreements to look more like NATO Article 5, urging the country’s patrons to help it in the event of an attack. . Zelensky said he wanted to put the decision to a referendum, which he said would take “a few months” before launching constitutional changes that would require at least a year of work. “The guarantors will not sign anything if we have troops [on our territory]. That is why I believe we could end the war quickly. “Putin and his entourage are just dragging him out,” Zelensky said. “Who will talk about anything if the troops are still there? Who will sign anything? “Nothing will happen, it is impossible.” He added that Ukraine had refused to discuss two other Russian demands in the talks: “de-zoning” and “demilitarization”. These were “completely incomprehensible things,” he said. Ukraine and its Western backers fear that Russia could use the talks as a smokescreen as it raises its forces for a new offensive and creates new battle groups near the border. On Sunday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Washington would provide an additional $ 100 million in political security assistance to Ukraine to help enforce political law and protect government infrastructure. In a statement, Blinken said the money would help continue to provide personal protection equipment, tactics and communications equipment, medical supplies and armored vehicles for Ukraine’s border guard service and its national police force. Fierce fighting also continued in the east and north, with Ukraine claiming to have recovered land along supply routes near Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy. Russia has stepped up its rocket attacks on fuel and food depots for a third day. Ukraine reported strikes in Lutsk, Zhytomyr and Rivne in the west and in Kharkov in the east, as well as “carpet bombings” in Mariupol, the southeastern port city where the worst of the war has broken out and is almost devastated. Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to consider giving the Russian language a protected minority status if it received similar guarantees from Moscow for Ukraine. However, he said Putin had done “irreparable damage” to the Russian language in Ukraine through violent attacks in predominantly Russian-speaking cities such as Mariupol. “These Russian-speaking cities are the ones that have been wiped off the face of the earth. “And these families,” said Zelensky. He said 90 percent of the buildings in Mariupol, which previously had a population of 400,000, had been destroyed, “but at least they were high-rise, so you can imagine what was there.” Smaller cities on the other hand had been completely destroyed. “I do not know who else the Russian army has ever faced in this way,” he said, adding that the disaster was worse than the two Moscow campaigns in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s.