By Yuliia Dysa and Lidia Kelly
KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday after his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders that security guarantees for Kyiv will likely be worked out within 10 days.
“Security guarantees will probably be ‘unpacked’ by our partners, and more and more details will emerge. All of this will somehow be formalised on paper within the next week to 10 days,” Zelenskiy said at broadcast press briefing after his meetings.
Trump told Zelenskiy on Monday that the United States would help guarantee Ukraine’s security in any deal to end Russia’s war there, though the extent of any assistance was not immediately clear.
“It is important that the United States is sending a clear signal that it will be among the countries helping to coordinate and will also be a participant in the security guarantees for Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said. “I believe this is a major step forward.”
Although a peace deal appeared far from imminent after the meetings in Washington, Zelenskiy said his Monday meeting with Trump was his “best” so far.
He also said Ukraine was ready to meet with Russia in “any format” and that territorial issues would be discussed on a bilateral level with Russian President Vladimir Putin – but no dates for a possible meeting with Moscow have been scheduled yet.
“The question of territories is something we will leave between me and Putin,” Zelenskiy said.
He added that a part of security guarantees for Ukraine is a package of U.S. weapons “which primarily includes aircraft, air defence systems,” among others.
“There indeed is a package with our proposals worth $90 billion,” Zelenskiy said.
“And we have agreements with the U.S. president that when our export opens, they will buy Ukrainian drones. This is important for us.”
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Stephen Coates)
Comments