KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine has said it expects rapid progress on the security guarantees its allies could provide in a peace deal with Russia, but that one of the possible summit sites being pursued by the United States would be “challenging.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged swift progress as military officials from the U.S. and Europe meet. Ukraine wanted to “have an understanding of the security guarantees architecture within seven to 10 days,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.
After Russia launched one of its biggest aerial attacks of the year overnight, he said Thursday that there was “still no signal from Moscow that they truly intend to engage in substantive negotiations and end this war.”
Later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated his government’s longstanding demands that Ukraine be demilitarized and stop trying to be allied with the West.
“Ukraine would remain neutral, non-nuclear and non-aligned,” Lavrov said during a news conference. He suggested that a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting depended on addressing these demands in advance, and accused Kyiv and its allies of undermining Trump’s efforts to secure a peace deal.
“The goals pursued by the current Ukrainian leadership — goals that are undoubtedly fueled by the Western sponsors of the Kyiv regime — are directed against the efforts being made by President Trump,” he said.
