2024-09-25 10:29:55
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is in New York to attend the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly and present his “victory plan” to US lawmakers, spoke with the leaders of Germany, India and Japan on the sidelines of forum in an attempt to drum up support for Kiev’s military efforts, Reuters reported.
“We talked about how to make a just peace more possible,” Zelensky wrote on the Telegram platform after his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “The main thing is to preserve unity,” he added.
Germany is one of the most significant supporters in Europe of Kiev’s defensive struggle against the Russian offensive, BTA recalls.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, or “special military operation” as Moscow calls it, began in February 2022 and has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and reduced Ukrainian cities to rubble, Reuters notes.
After the UN General Assembly meetings, Zelensky is due to travel to Washington later this week to present his “plan for victory” and try to influence White House policy on the war, regardless of who wins the upcoming presidential elections. the US election on November 5.
Zelensky said he also met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We are dynamically developing relations,” he wrote in a Telegram post after the meeting.
Earlier this month, it was reported that artillery shells sold by Indian arms manufacturers were being diverted by European customers to Ukraine, and India did not intervene to stop the trade, despite protests from Moscow.
India maintains warm relations with Russia, which has been its main arms supplier for decades, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused to join the Western-led sanctions regime against Moscow.
Zelensky also held talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida regarding Japan’s energy aid to Kyiv.
“Restoring our energy supplies after the Russian shelling and preparing for the winter are tasks we are actively working on at the moment,” Zelensky announced. “Together with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, we discussed the situation in the energy sector,” he added.
Japan is one of the countries that provide aid to Ukraine. According to data published on the website of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this year Tokyo provided $4.5 billion in aid to Kyiv.
Japan has provided Kiev with equipment for restoration work and to increase the capacity of Ukraine’s energy system, so that the country can cope with the winter in the face of the ongoing strikes by Russian forces on its energy infrastructure.
Ukraine’s power shortage could reach about a third of expected peak consumption amid attacks and the expiration of a gas supply contract at the end of this year, the International Energy Agency said in a report last week.
Earlier, Zelensky met with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress.
“Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” the Ukrainian president wrote in Telegram.
In an interview with ABC News, Zelensky called on Washington and other partners to support Ukraine. The US and its allies have provided a multibillion-dollar aid program to Ukraine while imposing several rounds of sanctions against Russia, Reuters notes.
Zelensky said in the interview that only from a “strong position” could Ukraine pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin “to stop the war.”
So far, the Ukrainian leader has said little about his “victory plan” except that it will be a “bridge” to a second Ukrainian-led peace summit, which Kiev wants to hold and invite Russia to later this year.
The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in New York that the plan included Ukraine’s accelerated NATO membership, a move Moscow says it will never allow.
For his part, Putin has argued that peace talks can only begin if Kiev hands Russia vast territories in eastern and southern Ukraine and abandons its ambitions to join the alliance. Zelensky has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders, Reuters notes.