The presence of his supporters \u201cwould be helpful\u201d during talks with the US president, the Ukrainian leader has said<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s Vladimir Zelensky has called for European leaders to attend his next meeting with US President Donald Trump for discussions on resolving the conflict with Russia.
\nWashington has drafted a 28-point peace proposal, which underwent revisions after talks with Ukrainian officials in Geneva last weekend. Moscow has said it has yet to receive any version through official channels.
\n\u201cI am ready to meet with President Trump \u2013 there are sensitive points to discuss, we still have them \u2013 and we believe that the presence of European leaders could be helpful,\u201d Zelensky said on Tuesday in an address to EU leaders, a video of which was released by his office.
\nWhen Zelensky met with Trump in August after the US president\u2019s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, he was accompanied by seven Western officials, including NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and the leaders of Finland, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK.<\/p>\n
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A leaked version of the initial US plan appeared to require Kiev to abandon several of its long-standing \u201cred lines,\u201d including its bid for NATO membership and territorial claims against Russia. Ukrainian officials say they persuaded Washington to substantially revise the document.
\nRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cautioned that if the revised draft deviates from what Moscow considers the original \u201cspirit of Anchorage,\u201d the situation will become \u201cradically different.\u201d
\nZelensky\u2019s political standing at home has been weakened by a recent corruption scandal involving long-time associate Timur Mindich, who was charged by Western-backed anti-graft investigators with running a major kickback scheme.
\nSurveillance of Mindich by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine captured conversations involving Zelensky and his chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, possibly implicating both, media outlets report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The presence of his supporters \u201cwould be helpful\u201d during talks with the US president, the Ukrainian leader has said Ukraine\u2019s Vladimir Zelensky has called for European leaders to attend his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23153,"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-23152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t