Kyiv has sent Moscow an offer to hold a new round of peace talks next week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, after negotiations between the countries last month made no progress toward ending the ongoing war.
“Everything should be done to achieve a cease-fire,” Zelenskyy said in his regular evening address on July 19.
“The Russian side should stop hiding from decisions,” he added.
Zelenskyy also reiterated his readiness to have a face-to-face sit-down with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, saying: “A meeting at the leadership level is needed to truly ensure peace — lasting peace.”
Two rounds of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul in May and early June secured large-scale prisoner swaps and deals to return the bodies of slain soldiers.
But they made no breakthrough in achieving a cease-fire to potentially end the military conflict that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
Zelenskyy said, Rustem Umerov, the newly appointed head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, had sent Moscow the offer to hold the meeting next week, but did not provide further details.
Umerov, a former defense minister, headed the Ukrainian delegation at both rounds of the peace talks in Turkey.
Moscow has repeatedly said it is ready for a fresh round of negotiations but has since intensified its relentless air strikes on Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s comments came just hours after Russia fired nearly 380 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at nearly a dozen Ukrainian towns and cities, killing at least one person and wounding others, according to Ukrainian emergency officials.
A nine-story apartment building in the Black Sea port of Odesa was hit, killing one woman and wounding several others, the officials said.
Ukraine responded with a barrage of drone attacks overnight and in the early hours of July 20, with some drones heading toward the Russian capital, Moscow.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on July 20 that its forces had shot down 142 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 27 over the Moscow region.
The drones were reportedly downed over a number of regions in the European part of Russia, as well as over the Black Sea.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that the latest attacks included four drones heading toward the capital in the morning, and that they were intercepted by air defense systems.
The drone strikes forced Moscow’s four major airports — Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky -– to redirect a total of 134 flights, according to Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia.
By 10 a.m. Moscow time, Vnukovo in the Moscow region and Grabtsevo in the Kaluga region remained closed to air traffic.
