Volodymyr Zelensky rejects idea of ​​ceasefire or ‘concessions’ to Russia

Called by Viktor Orban for a military truce on the front, the Ukrainian president denounced “very dangerous rhetoric”, for his country as for Europe.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, November 7, rejected the idea of ​​discussing a ceasefire with Russia or making the slightest gesture to it. “concession”after Moscow ordered the West to negotiate under penalty of “destruction of the Ukrainian population”. “We can’t just say ‘a ceasefire now and then we’ll see’. It’s not viable. And the worst part is that it’s irresponsible.”declared Volodymyr Zelensky during a press conference on the sidelines of a summit of the European Political Community in Budapest, referring to a “very dangerous rhetoric”.

Calls for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are becoming more insistent after more than two and a half years of a devastating war, including among some of kyiv’s allies, as Russian forces advance in eastern Ukraine. country. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the European leader best disposed to Vladimir Putin, repeated his call for a truce on the battlefield on Thursday, to “give the warring parties the space and time to communicate and begin to negotiate peace”. For Volodymyr Zelensky, however, concessions to Moscow would be “suicidal”.

This summit comes the day after Donald Trump’s victory against Kamala Harris in the United States, a fact which could change the course of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. While Vladimir Putin said to himself “ready”from the Russian city of Sochi, to “resume contact” with the president-elect, Volodymyr Zelensky discussed his “conversation productive” with the future tenant of the White House, eagerly awaited on geopolitical questions.

Furthermore, Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that he had spoken in Budapest with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron about military aid for kyiv and the training of Ukrainian soldiers in France. The French presidency, for its part, declared that Emmanuel Macron had “kept to reaffirm that France would continue to support Ukraine as long and intensely as necessary”with a view to “achieve a just and lasting peace”.