Now is ‘worst moment’ for Kiev to start peace talks – EU state’s leader

The current stage in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is the “worst” possible time for Kiev to begin negotiations with Moscow, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda has claimed.

Russian forces have been steadily advancing in Donbass and other parts of the frontline since the start of the year, capturing dozens of populated areas, including the strategic town of Avdeevka in February and the stronghold of Ugledar earlier this month. Territory under Ukrainian control in Russia’s Kursk Region, where Kiev troops launched an incursion in early August, has also been shrinking in recent weeks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “thinks he is prevailing and pushing Ukraine into the corner,” Nauseda told journalists on Thursday, as he arrived at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels.

“This is the worst moment to start negotiations because he feels Russia is the stronger side,” he said, as cited by Reuters.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is scheduled to address the gathering in Brussels later in the day in order to promote his self-styled ‘victory plan.’

Zelensky presented his proposals to the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday, saying they include an immediate invitation for Kiev to join NATO, the lifting of restrictions on the use of Western-supplied long-range weapons for strikes on internationally recognized Russian territory, as well as the deployment of “a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” on Ukrainian soil.

“This plan can be implemented. It depends on the partners. I emphasize: on partners. It doesn’t exactly depend on Russia,” he claimed.

“There is nothing new in there,” the Lithuanian president said of Zelensky’s plan. “There is what we wanted to do but failed to do at the Vilnius summit [in 2023] on inviting Ukraine to join NATO, and then the same thing happened again in Washington [in July].” 

“As long as we do not do it, we are far from victory. The very causal links here are self-evident,” Nauseda, who has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine during the conflict, added.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has described Zelensky’s proposals a “set of incoherent slogans,” saying that they were not a ‘victory plan,’ but more of a “plan for the misfortune of Ukraine.”

In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was ready to stop the fighting and immediately begin talks with Ukraine if Kiev were to officially give up its NATO aspirations and withdraw from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and from the Kherson and Zaporozhye, regions, which joined Russia after referendums in the fall of 2022.

Zelensky rejected the offer, branding it an “ultimatum.” The Kremlin said those terms were no longer on the table after Ukraine launched its incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region.