Ukraine wants a Zelenskyy-Putin summit to jolt stalled US-led peace efforts

KYIV, Ukraine, April 22, (AP): Ukraine is pushing for face-to-face talks between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kyiv’s top diplomat said, presenting a potential summit as a way of injecting new momentum into U.S.-led efforts to end Russia’s more than four-year invasion of its neighbor. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack deep inside Russia struck a residential building, killing a woman and a child, Russian officials said Wednesday.

Kyiv has asked Turkey to help facilitate top-level talks and has reached out to other capitals as potential hosts, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, adding that Ukraine would consider any venue outside Russia and Belarus. "We are … advocating for a (summit) meeting now to bring new momentum to diplomacy,” Sybiha told reporters on Tuesday.

His remarks were embargoed until Wednesday. US-mediated talks over the past year between delegations from Moscow and Kyiv have made little or no headway on key issues, such as the future of four Ukrainian regions Moscow is trying to capture but doesn’t fully control. With Washington’s attention now gripped by the Iran war, the talks are on ice.

Zelenskyy has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump but Putin has refused. Putin thinks that time is on his side, that Western military and financial support will fade and that Ukraine’s resistance will eventually collapse, analysts say. Meanwhile, a grim war of attrition continues along the about 1,250-kilometer (800-mile) front line that snakes along eastern and southern areas of Ukraine.

Western officials and analysts claim Russia is suffering several tens of thousands of battlefield casualties each month, drawing comparisons to the carnage of World War I. Independent verification of battlefield casualties and which side has the upper hand is not possible.

Ukraine has developed a domestic arms industry which is increasingly producing long-range drones and missiles capable of striking deep inside Russia. It has taken aim at Russia’s oil production and manufacturing plants that supply the Russian military.