Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he met in Kiev with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who offered to deliver his message for peace talks to the Kremlin, but the head of state stressed that his government would not give up Donbas, Reuters reported.
Zelensky said this to the British television "Sky News" last night in London. This is the first confirmation that the Russian billionaire traveled to the Ukrainian capital and participated to some extent in the negotiations, Reuters notes.
Abramovich "came to Kiev. He said: “I inform you directly. And I want to take a message from you and deliver it to Vladimir Putin. But he added that this should be done quietly, without any public messages," the Ukrainian president said.
Zelensky added that the meeting "was not a secret," noting that the Russians wanted to know what "Kiev is ready to do."
"I said that the issue is not about us. You are fighting against us on our territory. I told him about Donbass, and that was a key message. I told him that we will not leave and we will not withdraw from our territory. No, we will not give you victory like that. And you will not get it," Zelensky stressed.
Abramovich - the former owner of the Chelsea football club - is among those sanctioned in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
He played a key role in the failed negotiations to end the fighting in the first weeks after the invasion and in the deal to guarantee the transport of grain in the Black Sea, but its presence has been less visible since then, Reuters notes.
Putin has made it clear that Russia is not ready to stop fighting in Ukraine until Kiev withdraws from the Donbass region, a region consisting of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Ukrainian forces control about a fifth of Donetsk region, and Zelensky said he would not abandon that territory and the tens of thousands of Ukrainians there.
The Ukrainian president also once again ruled out the possibility of meeting Putin in Russia or Belarus.
He said he would accept a cessation of fighting on the current front line as the fastest way to continue negotiations, but that did not mean giving up territory.
"Yes, this is the fastest way", Zelensky said. "(However) we want to stop the war in a way that it will not be resumed. The idea is not "just to freeze (the fighting), but the quickest way is to freeze it and move to the diplomatic front," he added.