Meeting with Putin, buffer zone and foreign contingent: details of Zelensky’s press conference

On Friday, August 29, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a press conference at which he made a number of statements.

In particular, he named three key security guarantees for Ukraine. According to him, these are, first of all, preserving the current size of the Ukrainian army, interaction with NATO countries and sanctions against the Russian Federation, and the use of frozen assets for reconstruction.

Zelensky also added that there are some “unexpected” countries that are ready to deploy their contingent in Ukraine, but there is no confirmation yet.

“Confirmation is when a country specifically says with numbers what it is ready for. Theoretically, we understand several countries that are ready for such steps. There are expected countries, and there are very unexpected ones,” the president said.

He also commented on the negotiation process, noting that Ukraine is cooperating with countries of the Global South and the United States. Together, they are working on the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of Ukrainian children.

“Our team works along the lines of Qatar – Saudi Arabia – Turkey – UAE – Switzerland – USA,” the head of state explained.

At the same time, the parties are preparing the ground for potential meetings of the leaders, but the Russians are doing everything they can to avoid them. Zelensky believes that there would be a better chance of holding a trilateral meeting if it took place before the summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

At the same time, Ukraine now expects “strong steps” from the US towards Russia, because they did not agree to hold a meeting at the leadership level.

“It will be two weeks on Monday, and we will remind everyone of this,” the president recalled Trump’s deadline for Russia.

Zelensky also reacted to the course of hostilities on the front. He noted that the most difficult thing is now in the Pokrovsky direction, where the occupiers have accumulated 100 thousand soldiers. In part of the Donetsk region and in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian military is conducting active operations, and in the Sumy region, they are pushing out the enemy. There are no changes in the Zaporizhia direction, but the threat remains, because the Russians are accumulating landing forces there.

The President added that both Ukraine and the Russian Federation have long since withdrawn their heavy equipment 10 kilometers from the line of combat contact.

“Everything is being hit by drones. This buffer zone — I call it the dead zone, some call it the gray zone — it already exists,” he concluded.

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