Ukraine said on Sunday it would not buckle under pressure during talks with Russia over its invasion, even as it slammed President Vladimir Putin’s move to put Russian nuclear forces on high alert.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said not an inch of the country’s land would be ceded to the opponent. “We will not surrender, we will not capitulate, we will not give up a single inch of our territory,” Kuleba said at a press conference broadcast online. Ukraine said it would hold talks with Russia “without preconditions” along the Belarusian border after Moscow earlier demanded Kyiv’s military lay down their arms before negotiations could begin.
This came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy his country was willing to negotiate at any place other than Belarus, a nation he accused of being a staging ground for the invasion. Meanwhile, war continued in several cities of Ukraine for the fourth day of Russia’s invasion, a move that has sent shockwaves across the world.
Ukraine’s forces have put up fierce resistance and claim to have inflicted heavy damages on the Russian military. The Ukrainian army took back full control of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, hours after Russian troops entered the northeastern city that was soon rocked by machine gun firing and explosions early Sunday.
Kuleba said that after it “suffered losses and realised their plan did not go as it was designed, their blitzkrieg failed, Russia started speaking with the language of ultimatums, saying they are ready to talk with preconditions”. “As the Russian army experienced one defeat after another, the preconditions, the ultimatums of Russia were put aside and they conveyed the message to us that they just want to talk,” he said.
