Zelensky still willing

UKRAINE'S President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday renewed his offer to meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, but hopes of any progress were low as delegations from both governments prepared to hold a third round of direct talks.

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Mr Putin has spurned Mr Zelensky's previous offers of a face-to-face meeting to end Europe's biggest conflict since the Second World War, but the Ukrainian leader insists that lower-level delegations like the ones expected for talks in Istanbul today do not have the political weight to stop the fighting, while each side's demands for ending Russia's fullscale invasion of its neighbour, launched on February 24, 2022, remain far apart.

"Ukraine never wanted this war, and it is Russia that must end the war that it itself started," Mr Zelensky said in a Telegram post.