Zelensky tells Moscow to hold peace talks or suffer for generations

KYIV • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday called for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow, saying Russia would otherwise need generations to recover from losses suffered during the war.

He said Ukraine had always offered solutions for peace and wanted meaningful and honest negotiations on peace and security, without delay, adding that any Russian refusal to compromise would come at a steep price.

"I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. The time has come for a meeting, it is time to talk," he said in a video address. "The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia's losses will be such that it will take you several generations to recover," he added.

Russia last acknowledged on March 2 that nearly 500 of its soldiers had been killed and has offered no updates since. Ukraine says the number by now has reached many thousands.

The two sides have been involved in talks for weeks with no sign of a breakthrough.

Mr Zelensky also said Russian forces were deliberately blocking the supply of humanitarian supplies to cities under attack.

"This is a deliberate tactic... This is a war crime and they will answer for it, 100 per cent," he said.

Unprecedented Western sanctions aimed at crippling Russia's economy and starving its war machine have yet to halt what Russian President Vladimir Putin calls a "special operation" to disarm its neighbour and purge it of "Nazis". Kyiv and its allies have called this a baseless pretext for war.

The Ukrainian authorities yesterday noted the southern cities of Mariupol, Mykolaiv and Kherson as well as Izyum in the east continued to see the heaviest fighting.

As Russian troops remained on the offensive, a humanitarian corridor for evacuations in Ukraine's Lugansk region was due to be opened yesterday morning, regional governor Serhiy Gaiday said on Telegram.

"A humanitarian corridor has been agreed, we will try to evacuate people and bring food today. A 'regime of silence' has been agreed," he said. And Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine hopes to evacuate more civilians via 10 humanitarian corridors.

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, reported yesterday that more than 3.3 million Ukrainians had left since the war began on Feb 24, while nearly 6.5 million are thought to be internally displaced within the country.

Some 90 per cent of those who have fled are women and children. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are eligible for military call-up and cannot leave.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE