Ukraine's Zelenskiy offers Russia more talks next week

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Kyiv has sent Moscow an offer to hold another round of peace talks next week, and that he wanted to speed up negotiations for a ceasefire.

Ukraine and Russia have held two rounds of talks in Istanbul over the past five months. They have agreed to swap prisoners but made no breakthroughs in ending almost three and a half years of conflict that started with Russia's 2022 invasion.

"Everything should be done to achieve a ceasefire," Zelenskiy said in his evening address to the nation. "The Russian side should stop hiding from decisions," he added.

The president said Rustem Umerov, who headed the Ukrainian delegation at both talks in Istanbul, had sent the Russian side the offer to hold the meeting next week, but gave no more details.

Umerov, a former defence minister, was appointed last week as the head of the National Security and Defence Council and tasked with adding more momentum to the negotiations.

Russia has been pressing a grinding offensive along the eastern front in Ukraine's Donetsk region. It has repeatedly said it is ready for a new round of talks but has not backed down from what Kyiv and its allies describe as its maximalist war aims.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has sharpened his tone against Russia in recent weeks amid worsening air strikes on Ukrainian cities, threatened harsher sanctions on Russia earlier this month if a peace deal was not reached within 50 days.

(Reporting by Olena Harmash; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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