Translated material
War
One thousand four hundred fifty-nine day. Zelensky: The United States and Russia put forward the same demand to end the war - that Kyiv “get out of Donbass”
Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. We publish your letters every day because we are sure that we need to continue talking about the war. Share with us your thoughts about the war. What feelings are you experiencing? How does war affect your life and your attitude towards the world? If you have a story related to the war, tell it . The feedback form is at the end of this article. A review of the previous day can be read here .
World
The US and Russian authorities are jointly putting pressure on Kyiv to withdraw troops from Donbass, said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
“Both the Americans and the Russians are saying: if you want the war to end tomorrow, get out of Donbass,” he said in an interview with AFP.
At the same time, Zelensky noted, “one cannot say that Ukraine is losing the war.” “To be honest, we are definitely not losing. The question is whether we will win. But this is a very expensive issue,” the president said in a conversation with French journalists.
Since the beginning of 2026, Russia and Ukraine have held a series of peace talks with the participation of the United States in Abu Dhabi and Geneva. The main topic at the negotiations remains the territorial issue. According to media reports , among other things, the parties discussed the possibility of creating a demilitarized zone in Donbass. No progress has been officially reported on this topic.
Western intelligence services believe that the Kremlin is not at all interested in a speedy conclusion of peace and is ready to continue to achieve complete control over the Donbass by military means, and uses the negotiations to lobby for the lifting of sanctions and concluding business deals with the United States.
Ukraine still controls about one-fifth of the Donetsk region's territory. And, according to Zelensky, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are making progress in counterattacks along the southern front line.
“I won't go into details. But today, first of all, I can congratulate all our forces - because as of today, 300 (square) kilometers have been liberated,” the President of Ukraine said in a conversation with AFP. He did not specify what time period he was talking about.
In addition to territorial demands, the United States and Russia, as part of their peace plan, insist that presidential elections be held in Ukraine.
Zelensky previously stated that voting in Ukraine could only take place after the end of the war. The president believes the Kremlin is pushing for a quick vote only to remove him from power. "Let's be honest, the Russians just want to replace me," he told AFP. “Nobody wants elections during a war.” Everyone is afraid of its devastating consequences.”
According to Zelensky, elections in Ukraine can only take place if Kyiv's allies provide strong security guarantees to prevent Russian attacks. The Ukrainian leader believes that European troops, which could be sent to Ukraine in the event of a cessation of hostilities, should be deployed closer to the front line. "Of course, no one wants to stand on the front line, but the Ukrainians would like our partners to stand next to us on the front line," he told AFP.
War in photographs. Odessa
On the night of February 21, Russian troops attacked Odessa with drones, the local military administration reports. As a result of the strike in the Khadzhibey district of the city, two private houses were destroyed, and damage was recorded in another 12. Several apartment buildings were damaged in the Primorsky district. A total of 115 apartments were hit. In addition, the local lyceum was partially destroyed and the warehouses of the energy company were damaged. Two people were injured.
War through the eyes of Meduza readers
How we choose letters
Meduza's readers live in different countries and have different attitudes towards the war. We publish your letters to see this event through your eyes. Our editors try to present all points of view, even if they do not coincide with the editorial position. However, in accordance with the Meduza code, we do not publish messages that contain “hate speech,” justify the murder of civilians, or express direct support for an aggressive war.
Kira (Moscow) . My grandmother grew up in Ukraine, often sent her daughter to this country and so on. At the same time, she, having her entire family in Lugansk (her homeland), somehow manages to believe that Putin is great, that Zelensky refuses everything, that all of Ukraine is ruled by its western part. I'm not surprised that her relatives stopped communicating with her. Now I don’t want either […]. And I know that in fact she is simply scared to believe that she lives on the side of fascism. But it really hurts me because she doesn’t hear what I tell her.
A person laughs at the countries of the former USSR, saying that they themselves once crawled and begged on their knees to be accepted, and now they say that they have some kind of their own history and their people are somehow different. My grandmother is an imperialist. And that scares me.
But now I understood why they didn’t talk about politics in our family. It is impossible to convince her, a Soviet man. But God, how I want her to open her eyes. How I want her to be on the side of her real homeland. How I want her to understand that now her country is destroying its own past. I can't hold back my tears when I realize how much this damn government has changed her. I'm crying because she has forgotten what her father stood for (even though she doesn't understand it).
I’m horrified because I, born under Putin, see this, but she doesn’t. She only regrets that that part of the family “for some reason” refused to move to the Russian Federation when it all started. And she really worries about them, from the bottom of her heart. But morally he is fighting in the wrong direction, in the wrong direction at all.