Questions remain over security guarantees for Ukraine, says Zelenskyy

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked his international allies for their support but suggested there was still questions remaining over the future security guarantees for his country. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday, Zelenskyy repeatedly thanked American and European allies for helping Ukraine by providing air defence systems that protect infrastructure like power plants and “save lives”.

Previous US-led efforts to find consensus on ending the war, most recently two rounds of talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, have failed to resolve difficult issues, such as the future of Ukraine’s Donbas industrial heartland that is largely occupied by Russian forces. Later with reporters, Zelenskyy questioned how the concept of a free trade zone - proposed by the US - would work in the Donbas region which Russia insists Kyiv must give up in order to get peace. He also said the Americans want peace as quickly as possible and that US team wants to sign all the agreements on Ukraine at the same time whereas Ukraine wants guarantees over the country’s future security signed first.

European nations, including the UK and France, have already said they will commit troops to Ukraine to guarantee its future security. The US is also expected to be involved and discussions are currently ongoing about the nature of America’s support. Russian officials are opposed to any foreign troop presence in Ukraine, Zelenskyy suggested, because Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to have the opportunity to attack Ukraine again. Zelenskyy also said he was surprised that Moscow had replaced the head of its negotiating team before another round of US-brokered talks and suggested the move was deliberately aimed at delaying negotiations.

The talks take place against a backdrop of continued fighting along the roughly 1,250-kilometre (750-mile) front line, relentless Russian bombardment of civilian areas of Ukraine and the country’s power grid, and Kyiv’s almost daily long-range drone attacks on war-related assets on Russian soil. During negotiations, Russian officials have insisted Ukraine give up more territory in the east of the country to end the war. But Zelenskyy told The Associated Press that it was “a little bit crazy” to suggest Ukraine withdraw from its own territory or exchange it.

Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed defending the country’s Donbas region, he said, pointing out that 200,000 people also live there and it would not be acceptable to effectively hand them over to Russia. Zelenskyy also questioned how the concept of a free economic zone would work. “Imagine,” he said, if foreign soldiers patrolled the zone and Putin provoked them and they left. In that case, he said, there could be a “big occupation” of Ukraine and a lot of losses.

If Putin is given any opportunity for victory “we don’t know what he will do next”, Zelenskyy said. Such a model, Zelenskyy told the AP, would have “big risks” for Ukraine and for any country which committed to guaranteeing Ukraine’s security. But he said he was ready to discuss it as it could be important as a compromise in exchange for securing support to reconstruct Ukraine.

During negotiations, Moscow has to accept monitoring of a ceasefire and return some 7,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war in exchange for more than 4,000 Russian prisoners held by Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. Earlier on Saturday, drone strikes killed one person in Ukraine and another in Russia, Ukrainian officials said, ahead of fresh talks next week in Geneva aimed at ending the war. An elderly woman died when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

In Russia, a civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the border region of Bryansk, regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said. Russia-installed authorities said a Ukrainian airstrike on a village Saturday wounded 15 people in Ukraine’s partially occupied Luhansk region. The attacks came a day after a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian border city of Belgorod killed two people and wounded five, according to regional Gov.