ISTANBUL
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the next round of trilateral peace talks between Kyiv, Moscow, and Washington will take place in Switzerland, which hosted a third round of negotiations on Tuesday and Wednesday.
During an interview with Piers Morgan published late Wednesday, Zelenskyy said the recent talks in Switzerland were “very important” in showing and emoting the feeling that the ongoing war is taking place in Europe, which he argued not everyone recognized.
“The next meeting will be also in Switzerland,” Zelenskyy said.
On Feb. 17-18, a third round of trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US took place in Geneva, Switzerland, after which Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky said the next meeting in this format will take place “very soon.”
Those negotiations followed two earlier rounds in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on Jan. 23-24 and Feb. 4-5. The latter resulted in the first prisoner swap between Moscow and Kyiv since October last year.
Referring to a briefing by Ukraine’s delegation, led by National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, Zelenskyy said the negotiating team will return to Kyiv and hold a more open briefing than the previous one.
He said progress on the military track has exceeded that on the political front, which he described as marked by differing positions among all three parties.
Additionally, Zelenskyy raised Europe’s role in discussions on a post-ceasefire monitoring mission during talks with Russia and the US, stressing that European representatives should also be involved in this context.
The Ukrainian president reaffirmed the need for strong security guarantees to prevent a renewed conflict and said he believes territorial issues cannot be resolved by negotiating teams alone.
“I see now the result of our negotiation meetings. As I said, there are some points which are constructive … But I see now that only on the level of leaders we can try to end this war … We can really try to solve … the territorial questions, which are very sensitive and painful and difficult. That's why we speak about security guarantees, because we don't trust (the) Russians,” he said.
He also claimed that the US, with possible involvement from some European countries, is discussing a “new document” between NATO and Russia, adding that Ukraine should not be excluded from those talks.