Zelensky rules out peace talks with Russia

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday ruled out talks with Russia as he met with a delegation of African leaders.

“I clearly said several times at our meeting that to allow any negotiations with Russia now that the occupier is on our land is to freeze the war, to freeze pain and suffering,” Zelensky told reporters after meeting several leaders including South Africa´s Cyril Ramaphosa.

The delegation is to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday. They arrived in Kyiv on a mission to broker peace, first visiting the nearby town of Bucha, where Russian troops have been accused of massacring civilians.

Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine after they arrived on Friday morning and the air force said it had downed 12 Russian missiles.

Zelensky said that Russia´s missile strike on Kyiv as the African delegation visited meant that Putin did not control Russia´s army or that he was “irrational”, adding he wanted to “fully destroy the state of Ukraine.”

Zelensky accused Russia of managing to freeze the Ukraine conflict after annexing the peninsula of Crimea in 2014, adding that Kyiv would not allow Moscow to do this again.Advancing Ukrainian troops are facing “desperate resistance” from Russian forces around the eastern city of Bakhmut and are inflicting big losses on Russian troops in the south, Ukrainian military chiefs said.

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who is in charge of Ukrainian ground forces, said the situation in the east was tense and Russia was bringing its best divisions into the Bakhmut sector with backup from artillery and aircraft.”We continue to conduct offensive actions in separate directions, occupying dominant heights, and strips of forest with the aim of forcing the enemy gradually out of the outskirts of Bakhmut. Realising this, the enemy units put up desperate resistance,” Syrskyi said on the Telegram messaging app.