President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, on the eve of US-led, three-sided talks on resolving the war with Russia, that Ukrainian battlefield successes and mounting Russian losses were strengthening Kyiv’s position in negotiations.
The talks with Russian and US negotiators, opening on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, will be the first since February aimed at bringing closer an end to the more than 4-1/2-year-old war.
“Ukrainian forces are currently genuinely strengthening Ukraine’s negotiating position,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
“Every task that is fully accomplished, every defensive operation that increases Ukraine’s strength and delivers results, strengthens Ukraine and, above all, strengthens us in negotiations.”
Zelensky said top Ukrainian military commander Mykhailo Drapatyi had presented a report on Ukrainian military positions underscoring heavy recent losses by Russian forces. And he said Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian targets, including oil industry sites, were also working.
“These days, our defenders, both men and women, are achieving record results in eliminating Russian occupiers. Russia is suffering record losses on the front, every day and every week,” Zelensky said.
“We are responding to Russia’s war in a fully justified manner and demonstrating that this war must end. Russia can do this. It can end its war. It is important that the United States convince Russia of precisely this.”
The 1,200-km (775-mile) front line in the war has remained fairly static for many months and Ukrainian officials say Russia’s slow, long-running westward advance through the eastern Donetsk region has slowed further.
Zelensky last month pointed to successes in offensive operations in specific theaters.
Russian forces hold about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and President Vladimir Putin says Moscow’s objective remains to bring all of the eastern Donbas region under its control.
Russian commanders say their forces are continuing to advance on all sectors of the front and dismiss any suggestion that Ukraine’s military is making headway in recapturing territory.
Earlier, Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, said while on his way to Abu Dhabi that maintaining the diplomatic process was important at the talks and Kyiv would focus on prisoner exchanges and other humanitarian issues.
Ukraine’s delegation to the talks is being led by Rustem Umerov, the head of foreign intelligence.
