Zelensky reveals key conditions for ceasefire with Russia

Volodymyr Zelensky has emphasized that Ukraine will not make any concessions to Russia to obtain a ceasefire.

The Ukrainian president's comments came after an NBC report that the U.S. and the EU are holding private talks with Kyiv on peace negotiations with Russia. This followed an interview that the commander in chief of Ukraine's armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, gave The Economist, in which he said that the war was at a "stalemate."

Zelensky has since rejected the general's view and denied reports that Ukraine is under pressure regarding negotiations over the war. Kyiv says its aims are to push Russian troops out of all occupied territory and recapture Crimea, the peninsula seized by Russia in 2014, ahead of the war in Ukraine's Donbas region and President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

The Ukrainian president reiterated that for the war to end, Kyiv would require "the restoration of territorial integrity, rights and the freedom of citizens. Another stage of the war is the restoration of justice."