Kyiv does not want China to act as a mediator, but hopes that Beijing will put more pressure on Moscow to end the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a conversation with French journalists on Wednesday. Reuters news agency reports.
“If China wants to, it can force Russia to stop this war. I don’t want (China) to act as a mediator. I would like him to put pressure on Russia to end this war. Just as the US exerts pressure, just as the European Union exerts pressure. The more influence a country has, the stronger its pressure on Russia should be,” the agency quotes Zelenskyi as saying in a message published on the website on Thursday.
The agency notes that Zelensky also said that while Ukraine insists on restoring its 1991 post-Soviet borders, it would consider starting negotiations with Russia before all Moscow troops are withdrawn, if the right conditions are created.
Zelensky also reiterated his statement that Russia, which was barred from the first peace summit, should attend the next meeting, which he hopes to hold later this year. “Otherwise, we will not get viable results,” he said.
“All our conditions will be fulfilled. This does not mean that at this very moment we will restore our 1991 borders,” the President of Ukraine also said.
According to him, a just peace for Ukraine “presupposes the restoration of our territorial integrity, but this does not mean that it should be achieved exclusively with the help of weapons.”
Zelensky acknowledged the presence of Russian successes at the front and stated that they were caused by delays in equipping brigades, Russia’s reluctance to consider its own losses, and restrictions by Kyiv’s Western partners on how to deploy their weapons.
“The situation on the entire eastern front is difficult. They are concentrating all their efforts in the east,” said Zelensky, emphasizing the advance of the Russians westward to the Ukrainian-held city of Sloviansk.
