March 23 2023

Talks between Ukraine and Russia are confrontational but moving forward, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, as the West plans to announce more sanctions against the Kremlin.

In an early morning address, Mr Zelensky remained hopeful about negotiations, which have yielded little since the invasion started.

“It’s very difficult, sometimes confrontational,” he said. “But step by step we are moving forward.”

A senior government adviser has warned Ukraine’s peace negotiators may not be prepared for belligerent KGB tactics of Russian counterparts.

Having failed to seize the capital Kyiv or any other major city with a swift offensive, Russia is waging a war of attrition that has reduced urban areas to rubble and prompted Western concern the conflict could escalate – even to a nuclear war.

Russia’s security policy dictates the country would use such weapons if its existence were threatened, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN.

Peskov said the campaign was going to plan and no one thought the operation would take just a few days.