Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said Kyiv needed an “enduring” peace to protect it from Russia, after talks in Paris with US President-elect Donald Trump, who warned he would “probably” reduce aid to Ukraine.
Trump had earlier said Zelensky was keen for a “deal” and called for negotiations to start.
The pair met a day earlier with French leader Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee.
Trump, in an interview aired Sunday but recorded before the Saturday meeting, said his incoming administration would reduce aid to Ukraine, which Washington has been steadfastly backing since its invasion by Russia nearly three years ago.
“Possibly. Yeah, probably, sure,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
Trump has boasted he could end the conflict swiftly without saying how. Moscow and Kyiv are readying for his arrival in the White House, with an escalation in deadly attacks in recent weeks in the drawn-out conflict.
The Ukrainian president, who had previously opposed any territorial concessions, has eased his position in recent months. His army is struggling on the front line and fears are mounting of dwindling Western aid.
Zelensky has floated the idea of temporarily forgoing Russian-controlled areas — about one fifth of Ukraine — in exchange for NATO security guarantees and weapons deliveries from the West.
“I stated that we need a just and enduring peace — one that the Russians will not be able to destroy in a few years, as they have done repeatedly in the past,” Zelensky said on social media.
Almost three years of war have ravaged Ukraine, killing thousands and leading millions to flee the country.
“Ukrainians want peace more than anyone else,” said Zelensky. “Russia brought war to our land, and it is Russia that most seeks to disrupt the possibility of peace”.
He called on Western allies not to “turn a blind eye to occupation” and said Kyiv would only agree to a deal that would bring long-term peace.
“War cannot be endless — only peace must be permanent and reliable,” he said.
In a rare admission of numbers, Zelensky said 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed in combat, while some 370,000 were wounded.
Russia has not put an official figure on its losses, but independent media outlet Mediazona and the Russian service of the BBC — working from publicly available data — have estimated they have lost more than 82,000 soldiers.
Some analysts believe the true figures on both sides could be higher.
‘Key conditions’ discussed
Zelensky gave no specifics on what any talks might look like, but a senior Ukrainian official said they had discussed “some key conditions” for ending the war.
“We are not disclosing details, but the presidents discussed at the meeting that there should be something that would guarantee the reliability of the peace,” the source added.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, accused Ukraine of “refusing” to negotiate an end to the war. It said its conditions to enter peace talks — which include Kyiv giving up four regions — remain unchanged.
“The Ukrainian side refused and is refusing negotiation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
He referred to a 2022 Ukrainian decree that ruled out talks with Putin, but not other Russian officials.
Trump had earlier called for an “immediate ceasefire” and called for talks to begin.
“Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump has said he has good relations with Putin.
‘How long can we be at war?
As leaders made statements in Kyiv, Moscow and Paris, the situation on the ground in eastern Ukraine remained dire.
Moscow claimed another village in the east — Blagodatne in the Donetsk region — on Sunday, pressing steady gains.
Russian forces are just a few kilometres away from the eastern city of Pokrovsk.
Many in Ukraine have feared that Trump taking office would force it to make heart-aching concessions to Russia, while the nation is also suffering exhaustion.
In the village of Osynovo in the eastern Kharkiv region, news of the meeting between Trump and Zelensky offered some hope to one of the frontline village’s last remaining residents, Mykola Lytvynov.
Cleaning earth from vegetables in his backyard, the 80-year-old said he hoped the meeting could help bring about a negotiated end to the conflict.
“How long can we be at war? So many people have been killed, so many young people. And you see the massive level of destruction,” he told AFP.
He suggested Ukraine could have retained more of its territory by already entering into talks with Russia, but said he hoped for an end to the fighting for another, personal reason.
“Both my sons are fighting. I just want them to survive.”
Ukraine also said that two civilians had been killed in the Donetsk region and a 73-year-old man in a village in the southern Kherson region.
Kyiv said seven other people were wounded in attacks in other villages of the Kherson region.
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