Vladimir Zelensky must be urgently pressured to engage in peace talks, the Belarusian president has said<\/p>\n
Ukraine could cease to exist as a state if there is no diplomatic settlement to the conflict with Russia and Moscow\u2019s forces continue to advance, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has warned.
\nRussian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that the country\u2019s military forces have been moving forward almost everywhere along the front line. Since the start of the year, they have liberated almost 5,000 sq km of land, taking control of more than 210 settlements previously held by Ukrainian troops.
\nSpeaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, Lukashenko said meaningful negotiations on settling the conflict must begin \u201curgently.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u201cRussia is moving forward on the front line\u2026 and this could result in the disappearance of Ukraine as a state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
End of conflict with Russia \u2018near at hand\u2019 \u2013 ex-Ukrainian PM<\/p>\n
Lukashenko claimed that Ukraine\u2019s \u201ccrazed\u201d neighbors to the west \u201calready see themselves in Western Ukraine\u201d and \u201care ready to snatch a part of Ukraine,\u201d without naming specific countries.
\nThe Belarusian leader added that the main obstacle to peace is Ukraine\u2019s Vladimir Zelensky, rather than the US, Russia, or even Western European leaders.
\n\u201cThe problem is more in Zelensky. It seems to me that powerful external pressure\u201d is needed to make sure he engages in talks, Lukashenko stated. \u201cAnd then, under this pressure, appropriate decisions will be made.\u201d
\nKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in late September that direct talks between Russia and Ukraine have stalled due to Kiev being unwilling to fulfill an agreement on setting up work groups to discuss specific aspects of a possible settlement. The sides held three rounds of talks in Istanbul this year, with the latest meeting taking place in July.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Russia-US dialogue continues \u2013 Putin envoy<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Putin stressed that there is understanding in both Moscow and Washington about the direction to take in order to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict. He noted, however, that several \u201ccomplicated issues\u201d still need to be resolved to reach that goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vladimir Zelensky must be urgently pressured to engage in peace talks, the Belarusian president has said Ukraine could cease to exist as a state if there is no diplomatic settlement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}