President Zelenskyy has dismissed Vladimir Putin’s latest ceasefire offer as “nothing new” and likened it to Hitler’s promises before the Second World War.
The Russian leader set out preconditions on Friday for ending attacks on Ukraine and starting peace talks.
He said he would be ready for negotiations “tomorrow” if Ukraine withdrew from the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
President Putin said Russian would “immediately, literally the same minute” stop fighting and start negotiating if Ukraine withdrew its forces and ended its NATO bid.
“We will do it immediately. Obviously, we will guarantee the uninterrupted and safe withdrawal of Ukrainian forces,” he said.
Shades of Hitler
The president made the comments in a meeting with Russian foreign ministry officials, with Ukraine’s leader quick to say the offer could not be trusted as he warned of “Russian Nazism”.
“There is nothing new about this, this is Putin,” he told Sky Italia.
“Putin keeps saying when he will get some of our territories – some that they have already occupied and some others that are not occupied yet, in some of our regions – he says after that he will stop and there will be no ‘frozen war’.”
President Zelenskyy said it was “exactly the kind of things that Hitler would say”.
“He would say ‘give me a part of the Czech Republic and the war will end’, but he was just lying because after that came Poland; ‘give me a part of Poland’, and then came the occupation of the whole Europe…”
“This is what Nazism is about and we can’t trust Putin because he’s on the very same path,” added the Ukrainian president.
He told Sky Italia people should remember Russia only claimed Crimea and Donbas regions before the war, but has now expanded its attempted land grab.
Putin ‘peace’ offer
Mr Zelenskyy said as President Putin made his ‘peace’ offer, his country had been hit by around 31 drone and ballistic missile attacks.
The war began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The Kremlin’s hopes of a swift victory proved ill-founded, but it now controls large swathes of the country’s east and southeast.
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Ukraine has also been suffering badly with a lack of arms and ammunition. However, it is hoped a $61bn US arms package, agreed in April, will have a meaningful impact.
Mr Zelenskyy was speaking from the G7 meeting in southern Italy, which began on Thursday with a renewed show of support for Ukraine.
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President Biden also used the event to sign a 10-year security deal between America and Ukraine.
‘Point of no return’
A peace summit involving more countries takes place this weekend in Switzerland, based on a plan put forward by President Zelenskyy in late 2022.
President Putin’s ceasefire ultimatum came as he also warned the West was “close to the point of no return”, citing the US withdrawal from a nuclear treaty with Russia in 2019.
“Washington has unilaterally withdrawn from various arms-control treaties,” he said.
“The selfishness and arrogance of Western states has led to the current extremely dangerous state of affairs. We have come unacceptably close to the point of no return.”