PARIS (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday he was ready to hold four-way talks that included Russian President Vladimir Putin to calm relations after a buildup of Russian troops along their shared border.
Zelenskiy, on a visit to Paris, said he thought peace talks were possible.
He also said a separate meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Putin could help solve some issues, but that there should not be a substantive discussion about Ukraine without Ukrainian representatives present.
Zelenskiy was speaking after holding talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He wants further negotiations to take place in the so-called “Normandy” format that would also include Putin.
“I’m determined for the four of us to connect,” Zelenskiy told reporters.
“The issue of the security situation in the east of Ukraine and the de-occupation of our territories – these are issues that are resolved at the N4 (Normandy) meetings, where four leaders resolve issues.”
Zelenskiy was making a diplomatic push for support from Western allies in Ukraine’s standoff with Russia over the conflict in the eastern Donbass region and a build-up of Russian troops near Ukraine’s eastern border and Crimea.
Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for rising clashes in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops have fought Russian-backed separatists in a conflict that Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people since 2014.
In a statement after the meeting, France, Germany and Ukraine urged Russia to pull back its troops.
The Kremlin earlier said the fighting in eastern Ukraine had lessened but it was monitoring the situation closely.
Zelenskiy is also lobbying NATO member countries to speed up Ukraine’s entry into the NATO military alliance – a subject he said he discussed with Macron.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
