Zelenskyy signals concern, says he has 'bad feeling' about peace talks
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine (photo: Getty Images)
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about his bad premonition regarding peace negotiations with Russia, which he linked to the fact that the US has shifted its focus from Ukraine to the war in Iran, according to the BBC.
Problems with negotiations
While on a visit to the UK, the president said in an interview with a BBC journalist that peace negotiations are being delayed due to the conflict in the Middle East.
Zelenskyy said that he had very bad premonitions about the impact of the war on the situation in Ukraine, and that, unfortunately, the focus of America’s attention was more on the Middle East than on Ukraine, which was why diplomatic and trilateral meetings were constantly being postponed, and that there was only one reason for this — the war in Iran.
However, he added that despite major geopolitical changes, the participants in the negotiations communicate with each other daily.
He emphasized that President Trump was focused on Iran, that the negotiating teams were talking to each other, that their own team spoke with the American side every day, and that he knew the Americans were also talking with the Russians every day.
New conditions and Moscow’s repeated refusals
The Ukrainian leader also noted that, due to the war in Iran, the US has proposed holding negotiations on Ukraine on its territory, and Kyiv has agreed to this, but Russia is categorically against talks in the US.
Zelenskyy said that the American side, because of the war in Iran, had said it was ready to host both parties in the US, and that they had confirmed their participation, but the Russians were against meeting in the United States. He added that for the moment, they were trying to focus on America by proposing a date and place, and that Ukraine would support any date and any place, but definitely not in Russia.
Answering a question about whether US President Donald Trump’s actions have made the world more dangerous, he said:
The president concluded that he could not give a fair answer to that, explaining that he tried to speak objectively rather than subjectively, and that he believed any split within NATO would weaken both sides.
America shifts focus to Iran
The US has indeed shifted its focus from peace negotiations on Ukraine to the Middle East, where on February 28 it launched a special operation against Iran.
Even before the war in Iran began, in early February, the media reported that Trump might leave the negotiation process on Ukraine, and with the current situation in the Middle East, the American leader himself mentioned this possibility.
On the eve of these events, European Council President António Costa stated that Europe needs to prepare for the possibility that the US may indeed withdraw from the negotiation process on the war in Ukraine.
