Zelensky says he’s prepared to meet Putin in person ‘to achieve peace’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told British journalist Piers Morgan in an interview on Tuesday that, if necessary, he would be prepared to sit down with Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

Speaking on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Morgan’s YouTube channel, Zelensky said that he would “of course” be willing to hold face-to-face negotiations with Putin, whom he referred to as “an enemy”, if that was “the only way to achieve peace for Ukrainians and not lose people”.

Zelensky acknowledged that Ukraine was currently unable militarily to recover the territory seized by Russia and that it could not afford to “lose millions of people in pursuit of a result that may not come”. Instead, he pledged to use political and diplomatic means to restore Ukrainian control over its sovereign territory now occupied by Russian forces.

During the 90-minute interview, Zelensky revealed that 45,000 Ukrainians had been killed since the start of the full-scale war almost three years ago, while a further 390,000 Ukrainians had been wounded. He estimated Russia’s losses at 350,000 dead and between 600,000 and 700,000 wounded.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called Zelensky’s comments “empty”, according to state-owned news agency TASS, adding that they were based on nothing. However, he indicated that despite not recognising Zelensky’s legitimacy, Moscow remained open to negotiations, adding that contacts between Russia and the US had grown in frequency since Donald Trump’s return to the White House last month.