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VOLODYMYR Zelensky has challenged Vladimir Putin to meet him face-to-face so they can finally thrash out a peace deal.
Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has caused nearly two million casualties as the fourth anniversary draws closer with efforts to end the war ramping up.
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Kyiv’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha has made it clear Zelensky is ready to meet Russia‘s tyrant for the first time since the war began in 2022 for showdown talks.
Last week, both sides sat down together for historic trilateral talks with the US in the Middle East.
Representatives gathered in Abu Dhabi for negotiations, with American officials hinting that a summit between the two leaders could be on the cards after discussions went “better than expected”.
The talks ended without any major breakthrough with both sides refusing to budge on the two key issues yet to be resolved.
Putin remains obsessed on devouring all of the Donbas region and says he will only stop his invasion if Zelensky gives up the whole territory.
Ukraine is adamant that they should not be made to give up land they have spent four years fighting to keep.
The other sticking point revolves around who controls the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant – the largest in Europe.
Russia stole the plant away from Kyiv in 2022 and is refusing to give it back.
Sybiha says the only way the two issues can be fairly hashed out is to have the two leaders do so in person.
He said today: “It is precisely to address these issues that the president is ready to meet with Putin and discuss them.”
A fresh round of talks involving senior officials on both sides are due to take place on February 1, in Abu Dhabi.
Putin’s troops stormed across the Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022, with plans to bulldoze their much smaller neighbour with relative ease.
A defiant Ukraine has relentlessly defended itself with help from European allies as they continue to hold off Moscow from capturing key areas such as Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The war has taken a massive toll on both soldiers and civilians from Ukraine and Russia.
But it is Putin who has ended up losing more men and women despite claiming large swaths of land.
A study published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies claims that the conflict has resulted in over 1.8 million casualties.
It remains on track to hit the two million mark by spring.
An estimated 325,000 Russians have been killed compared to upwards of 140,000 Ukrainians.
Moscow has lost almost double the people overall with 1.2 million casualties – those who have been killed, wounded or missing.
These humiliating figures for Putin mark the highest rate of casualties of any war since World War Two.
Both nations have downplayed the surging casualty numbers on their own side throughout the war.
Russia has refused to publish a death toll since September 2022 after it reached 6,000.
Zelensky claimed last week that he believes Ukraine has lost around 46,000 troops only since the invasion.
Despite the calamitous losses on his own side, Putin is continuing to kill Ukrainian civilians.
The tyrant is currently hellbent on a bid to freeze residents to death or drive them to surrender by paralysing the power and heating systems across major cities.
Overnight saw brutal Russian strikes on Kyiv which left a wounded four-year-old an orphan when his mother and father were killed.
Separately, terrified women and children fled from a train in Kharkiv which was savagely attacked by Putin drones.
At least four people on board the train were killed in the strikes after terrifying footage showed the aftermath of the deadly blitz which targeted more than 200 civilian passengers.
Zelensky called the attack “an act of terrorism”.
Fears are now rising that Putin is leaning on his dictator friend Xi Jinping and China to develop nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles.
Specialised manufacturing machines and tools from China are being used to build new warheads, The Telegraph reports.
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