Zelensky says only ‘diplomacy’ can end Ukraine war

The war in Ukraine can only be resolved through diplomacy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said – despite a current deadlock in negotiations between the two sides.

Speaking on Ukrainian television, he suggested his country could be victorious on the battlefield – but that things could only come to a conclusive halt “at the negotiating table”.

The conflict “will be bloody, there will be fighting, but it will only definitively end through diplomacy”, Zelensky said.

But he indicated this would not be easy as neither side wanted to give anything up.

On Tuesday, Kyiv’s lead negotiator Mykhaylo Podolyak said talks were on hold.

The following day Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Kyiv authorities of not wanting to continue talks to end hostilities.

Russian news agencies say the last meeting happened nearly a month ago, on 22 April.

Russian forces are intensifying their battle to capture more territory in the eastern Donbas region, where they’ve been heavily bombarding Ukrainian positions.

Moscow now claims to have fully captured the strategic port city of Mariupol – where Ukrainian troops had been fighting for weeks to defend a huge steel plant. Those fighters have all surrendered.

The freeing up of Russian forces from Mariupol has raised concerns in Kyiv that Moscow will now be able to encircle the east of Ukraine.

The authorities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions say at least nine more Ukrainian civilians were killed in Russian attacks on Friday.