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Ukraine says Putin won’t talk to Zelenskiy about Russian troop build-up despite request
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has not yet been able to speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss the escalating conflict in eastern Ukraine despite lodging a request to do so, Zelenskiy’s spokeswoman said on Monday.
Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame over the worsening situation in the eastern Donbass region, where Ukrainian troops have battled Russian-backed forces in a conflict Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people since 2014.
Iuliia Mendel, Zelenskiy’s spokeswoman, told Reuters on Monday the Ukrainian leader had so far tried and failed to speak to Putin about the matter.
“The president’s office, of course, made a request to speak with Vladimir Putin. We have not received an answer yet and we very much hope that this is not a refusal of dialogue,” said Mendel.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had not seen such a request for talks “in recent days” and was unaware one had been recently made.
When asked if Putin had anything to say to Zelenskiy, Peskov said he hoped that what he called “political wisdom” would prevail in Kyiv when it came to de-escalating and avoiding a potential war.
Mendel said Russia had massed more than 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s eastern border and more than 40,000 troops in Crimea.