Russia masses over 50,000 troops for offensive on northeastern Ukraine, Zelensky says
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv has taken steps to prevent Russia's troops from conducting a large-scale offensive.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
KYIV - Russia has massed more than 50,000 troops, including some of its best forces, near Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, but Kyiv has taken steps to prevent them from conducting a large-scale offensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The build-up comes as Russia appears to be gearing up for a summer offensive in Ukraine while Kyiv waits for Moscow to present a memorandum laying out its conditions to proceed with ceasefire talks.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia's Kursk region where Ukraine previously seized and held a pocket of land for months, before being almost fully pushed out in April, although it says it still holds some small areas there.
"Their largest, strongest forces are currently on the Kursk front," Mr Zelensky told reporters on May 27. "To push our troops out of the Kursk region and to prepare offensive actions against the Sumy region."
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has said he wants a "buffer zone" along Russia's border with Ukraine. Mr Zelensky said he believed Russia wants to carve out an area of Ukrainian territory about 10km.
Russia has captured at least four border villages in the region recently, and has been creeping slowly forwards over the past several weeks on parts of the front line in eastern Ukraine near the city of Kostiantynivka.
However, the Ukrainian leader said that the Russians had been pushed back in that area by 4km over two days.
Mr Zelensky told reporters in a briefing that his government was ready for further peace talks in any format. He said he expected the next round to be at a technical level, but said he would be ready for a three-way meeting with US President Donald Trump and Mr Putin.
He said he did not want the United States to leave the Ukraine peace process, as Washington has threatened to do if progress is not made.
Venue for talks
Ukraine and Russia swopped 1,000 captives each after a meeting of the two countries' delegations
Mr Zelensky said he viewed Turkey, the Vatican and Switzerland as the most realistic venues for further negotiations with Russia. He said interest in hosting talks had also been expressed by Malta, as well as unspecified African nations.
Reuters previously reported that Moscow does not see the Vatican as a serious venue for talks.
Mr Zelensky said Russia had signalled that it wanted talks to take place in Belarus, a suggestion Kyiv regarded as unserious and impossible given Russian troops used the country as a launchpad to invade Ukraine in 2022.
He also said that he will attend the next G-7 summit after being invited by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose country currently holds the bloc's rotating presidency. He added that he will likely take part in the next EU summit.
Speaking about Ukraine's domestic arms production, Mr Zelensky said he wanted US$30 billion (S$38 billion) for Ukraine this year to fully fund the available capacity of the rapidly expanding sector. REUTERS
