Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy invited his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to meet in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region for peace talks to ease tensions between the two countries.
The invitation follows a recent spike in violence in Donbas, where Kyiv's troops have battled separatist forces since 2014.
"Mr. Putin, I'm ready to go even further and invite you to meet anywhere in Ukraine's Donbas, where the war is going on," Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Zelenskiy underlined that both sides lose in a war, adding that despite their shared past, Ukraine and Russia "look differently" into the future.
"But this is not necessarily a problem, it is an opportunity, at least an opportunity, before it is too late to stop the deadly mathematics of future military losses," he said.
