Volodymyr Zelensky suggests Ukraine is preparing for another winter at war with Russia despite hosting president Donald Trump’s peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Kyiv yesterday. Lauding their “very substantive” conversation, Zelensky said Ukraine was ready for trilateral talks involving Russia, the US and Ukraine. But, he added, “if the war continues into the winter, we are counting heavily on the winter package [of support], which I discussed in detail today with Steve, Jared, and our European partners.
"We are counting on support for air defence and the energy sector, as well as substantial volumes of American LNG and the ability to use them,” Zelensky said after his meeting with the two US officials. Trump’s son-in-law Kushner and Witkoff met with Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday, after holding three hours of talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Saturday in Moscow. Witkoff said he had "heard new ideas" in Moscow and hoped a new round of US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine would be announced "in short order”.
Zelensky said ending the war will ultimately come down to solving the matter of contested territory in eastern Ukraine. I believe, is the question of this war,” he said. Volodymy Zelensky thanked the US envoys for visiting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv yesterday, joking that their visit ensured a brief window of safety from Russian strikes – more efficiently than US-made Patriot missile interceptors.
Today, you worked even better than the Patriot systems for our citizens here in the capital. Please come visit more often, and our people will have a chance – a chance to live a little,” Zelensky said, speaking at a public briefing alongside Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Kyiv has not disclosed details yet of the outcomes of the visit or the terms for ensuring the two envoys' safety, but it is likely to have involved a request to Russia to halt attacks on the capital during their stay.
In the weeks leading up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the headlines in a Kyiv newspaper looked much like they would anywhere else. There was some debate over whether Russia would actually attack its neighbour. But then, outside of politics, there was everything else: the tourists stuck abroad, changes to school meals and the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid.
On 24 February 2022, everything changed as Russian tanks rolled across the border. Businesses closed or relocated, martial law saw hundreds of thousands of working-age men recruited for military service, and around one million people fled the country in the first week. A brave few stayed behind to keep a record of what happened as the missiles rained down.
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