Zelensky invites Putin to a meeting in the disputed Donbass area
In the wake of Joe Biden's invitation last week to Vladimir Putin for a bilateral summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sent a surprise invitation Tuesday for a meeting in the disputed area of conflict-plagued eastern Ukraine.
In making the announcement, Zelensky said such a direct meeting of high states where the two leaders can talk about easing is essential as there are "millions of lives at stake" in any potential outbreak of a major conflict, according to AFP. .
Zelenskii told the Russian leader he was ready "to meet him anywhere in the Ukrainian Donbass where the war is underway", adding that "millions of lives are at stake" in the conflict between government forces and pro-Kremlin separatists in the east of the country.
Days ago Zelenskii traveled to an area near Mariupol in Donetsk where he "walked the front lines with the troops" amid renewed fighting with Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donbass region.
Zelensky's direct invitation to Putin to meet on the crisis came on the same day that the Russian Defense Ministry justified the concentration of troops in the south, particularly in Crimea and near the border with Ukraine, calling it a necessary " deterrent ”to the“ destabilization ”of NATO. of the region.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that "NATO's attempts to destabilize situations in the Middle East and the Transcaucasian region force Russia to adopt symmetrical strategic deterrence measures," according to a Bloomberg quote from Interfax.
Zelensky's move is also a response to Biden's proposed meeting that seeks to relegate Ukraine to the background on a matter of national interest.
The FT itself noted that "The summit format would also satisfy the Kremlin by effectively cutting Kiev out of any negotiations and allowing Putin to project the image of two global superpowers deciding the future fate of the conflict."
The proposal is also a good communicative blow for Zelensky who challenges Putin in a certain way to have the courage to go to the battlefield.
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The article Zelensky invites Putin to a meeting in the disputed area of the Donbass comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/zelensky-invita-putin-ad-un-incontro-nella-zona-contesa-del-donbass/ on Wed, 21 Apr 2021 09:00:17 +0000.