A top adviser to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday threw cold water on a U.N. announcement that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will meet with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to broker peace talks between the nations.
In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Igor Zhovkva said Guterres isn’t authorized to speak on behalf of Ukraine in a planned sit-down with Putin.
“Not really. Not really,” Zhovkva said. “And this is not a good idea to travel to Moscow. We did not understand his intention to travel to Moscow and to talk to president Putin.”
According to Zhovkva, there’s only support for something that would yield results.
“I really doubt if those peace talks organized by the secretary general of the U.N. would end up with any result,” he asserted. “The U.N. should do more not only in terms of political things, but in terms of humanitarian things.”
“It would be good if the secretary general would focus on this as well,” he said.
Zhovkva also asserted Russia does not control the battered city of Mariupol.
“Russia does not control the city of Mariupol,” he insisted.
“Ukrainian armed forces are still in town, concentrated now on the Azov steel plant and concentrated there together with the civilians and many Ukrainian soldiers are wounded.”
“My president suggested several times to have a humanitarian corridor in order to evacuate the civilians which are left on the steel plant and the wounded [Russian] soldiers,” he continued, but got “no reaction.”
“More than 100,000 civilians are still left in the city, almost wiped down and the people are living without elementary conditions, without water supply and electricity. That's where we need the attention of the international community,” Zhovkva said.
He also called a Russian move into Moldova a “high possibility.”
“We heard those announcements of Russian officials who knows,” he said. “You never know with Russia, but yes, that would be a high possibility.”
“They can move anywhere they want, but we will not let them,” he added.
“Capturing Donbas is their dream starting from 2014. I have to remind you, the war started not in 2022 — the actual war of Russia started in 2014 by capturing the Crimean part of Donbas. Now they want to capture the whole Donbas. They want to have the connection between Donbas and the Crimea.”
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Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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