French President Emmanuel Macron offered Ukraine to cede some of its sovereignty so that Vladimir Putin could "save his face."
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this in an interview with the Italian TV channel Rai 1.
According to the Ukrainian leader, Macron tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine and wanted to achieve at least some result, but he failed to agree with Moscow.
The thing is that, actually, Ukraine was transmitted proposals from the Kremlin to cede part of the territories and sovereignty.
"He could not get anything of Russia. And I was offered some things related to concessions on our sovereignty in order to save Putin's face. It seems to me that this is not very tactful. We are not ready to save anything to someone and lose our territories. I think it's completely unfair," Zelenskyy stressed.
The President added that such proposals were not very fair and in fact it was a waste of time. In addition, the head of state is sure that the face of the bloodthirsty dictator can no longer be saved.
At the same time, he believes that Putin now needs to think not about how to save his face, but about how to save his state.
Answering the question whether Ukraine is ready to negotiate with a terrorist state, Zelenskyy noted that the issue is getting more complicated every day:
"Certain small towns are being de-occupied every day, and we see traces of abuses, torture, executions, and destruction left by the Russian military. That is why the moments of the possibility of negotiations are becoming more complicated," the President of Ukraine stressed.
He added that Ukraine is a peaceful society, and all 8 years of the war it tried to come to an understanding with the enemy.
"All these eight years all of us have been talking with the Russian Federation. Now the society is negative," Zelenskyy explained, referring to the atrocities of the Russians.
However, he assured that, as a president, he was ready to talk to Vladimir Putin:
"But only with him, without any of his intermediaries, and on the terms of dialogue, and not on the terms of ultimatums."
Context.
- We have already reported that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stressed that if Ukraine did not obtain the status of a candidate for EU membership, this would mean that one wanted to deceive Kyiv.
- Earlier, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said that the European Commission was ready to support the amendments to the Treaty on EU for Ukraine's membership.