In his nightly address on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky called out the Kremlin for its bellicose remarks earlier in the day, and said the United States should realize that Moscow is still not serious about talking peace.
“Today, we heard yet another signal from Moscow that they are preparing to make next year a year of war,” Zelensky said.
“It is important that our partners see this, and important that they not only see it but also respond, including our partners in the United States of America, who often say that Russia supposedly wants to end the war,” he said.
“When Russia is in this mindset,” he added, “it will also undermine diplomacy – seeking, through diplomatic language and pressure over specific points in documents – to merely mask its desire to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians, and the desire to legitimize Russia’s theft of our land.
Earlier in the day, Moscow’s forces launched guided bombs on civilian targets in the South of Ukraine, smashing 163 apartments in just one such attack, injuring more than 30 residents and emergency responders.
Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin on Wednesday vowed to push forward until the goals of his nearly four-year-old full-scale invasion of Ukraine are attained.
“The goals of the special military operation will certainly be achieved,” Putin told a meeting with his defense ministry officials in Moscow.
“We would prefer to do this and eliminate the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy,” he said, but insisted that Moscow would wrest occupied lands away from Ukraine “by military means” if “the opposing country and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions.”
In Berlin, Zelensky and US envoys reportedly were discussing a plan, according to German daily Bild, in which Ukraine’s Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk would be recognized de facto as Russian-controlled, while parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would be frozen along the current contact line.
The plan also envisaged Ukraine withdrawing from areas of Donetsk it currently controls, which would then be demilitarized and internationally recognized as Russian territory.
While Zelensky is reportedly willing to freeze the front line – effectively accepting the temporary loss of occupied territories, including Crimea and parts of eastern and southern Ukraine – he has firmly rejected any unilateral Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk.
In a conference with Ukrainian journalists on Monday night, Zelensky said “I want to emphasize once again… Neither de jure nor de facto will we recognize Donbas as Russian.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said Russia still had no briefing from the US on the outcome of the talks in Berlin.
“We expect that, as soon as they are ready, our American counterparts will inform us of the results of their work with the Ukrainians and the Europeans,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov was also quote by Russian media on Tuesday that, whatever was discussed, the European’s involvement ipso facto “did not bode well” for progress on peace talks.