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Ukraine president ready for talks with Russia, rejects Moscow's Belarus proposal
This handout video grab taken and released by the Ukraine Presidency press service on February 27, 2022 shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivering an address in Kyiv.
What you need to know:
- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has already cost some 200 civilian lives and drawn global condemnation.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that he was ready for talks with Russia, but rejected Moscow's push to stage them in Belarus as it was a launchpad for invading forces.
"Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku. We proposed all of them," Zelensky said in an address posted online.
"And any other city in a country from whose territory missiles do not fly would suit us," the 44-year-old president said.
"That's the only way talks can be honest. And could put an end to war."
Moscow prepared for talks
Zelensky's address came as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that Moscow was prepared for talks and had dispatched a delegation to the Belarusian city of Gomel.
"We will be ready to begin these talks in Gomel," Peskov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has already cost some 200 civilian lives and drawn global condemnation.
Moscow says Kyiv's forces must surrender and the country should agree to become a "neutral" territory, conditions seen widely as unacceptable by Ukraine.
Russian ground forces have pressed into Ukraine from the north, east and south but have encountered fierce resistance from Ukrainian troops, the intensity of which has likely surprised Moscow, according to Western sources.
Russia striking residential areas
Zelensky said Sunday that Moscow was bombarding residential areas in Ukraine as its invading forces sought to push deeper into the pro-Western country.
"The past night in Ukraine was brutal, again shooting, again bombardments of residential areas, civilian infrastructure," Zelensky said in an address posted online.
"Today, there is not a single thing in the country that the occupiers do not consider an acceptable target. They fight against everyone. They fight against all living things -- against kindergartens, against residential buildings and even against ambulances."
He said Russian forces were "firing rockets and missiles at entire city districts in which there isn't and never has been any military infrastructure".
"Vasylkiv, Kyiv, Chernigiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and many other towns in Ukraine are living in conditions that were last experienced on our lands during World War II."
Putin lauds Russian soldiers
Putin on Sunday congratulated members of special forces, saying they fought "heroically" in Ukraine.
"Special gratitude to those who these days are heroically fulfilling their military duty in the course of a special operation to provide assistance to the people's republics of Donbas," Putin said in a televised address.
