President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Vladimir Putin will be "ready for dialogue" if Ukrainian troops are able to return to the borders in early 2022.
Source. He said this in an interview with CBS.
In this case, Zelenskyy suggests, "there will be no need to liberate" the rest of the country "exclusively by military means" and negotiations can begin.
"I am sure that when Putin loses the territories he has controlled since 2022, he will lose the trust of even those countries that still have doubts about whether to support Ukraine or not. He will also lose power in his own country. Once this happens, he will be ready for dialogue. And then the liberation of all our territories and the territorial integrity of Ukraine should become an obligatory international condition for peace," the Ukrainian president said.
According to him, the situation at the front has now been "stabilised" and is better than it was two or three months ago, when Ukraine had a large shortage of artillery ammunition.
A new major Russian offensive, Zelenskyy said, could happen in late spring or summer, and without the help of its allies, Ukraine would not be able to contain it.
The Ukrainian leader's statement was commented on by Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who said that four new actors had appeared in Russia "since the beginning of the war" and "all of this will have to be taken into account."
The day before, the Ukrainian government had said it was ready for peace talks with Russia only under the "peace formula" proposed by President Zelenskyy. It includes Ukraine's return to the 1991 borders, including the return of Crimea and Donbas.
Background. Zelenskyy said in another interview that Ukraine needs ATACMS missiles to hit targets in Crimea. He also admitted that the US response to the attacks on Russian refineries "was not positive", but Kyiv used its own drones to strike targets.