Zelenskyy wants to end war with Russia via diplomacy next year

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A handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on October 4, 2024, shows Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visiting the 82nd Air Assault Brigade at an undisclosed location in the Sumy region, Ukriane. /CFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would like to end the war with Russia next year through "diplomatic means", in an interview aired on Saturday.

"On our part, we must do everything we can to ensure that this war ends next year. We have to end it by diplomatic means," Zelensky told Ukrainian radio. "And this, I think, is very important."

He said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was not interested in agreeing to a peace deal. "But that does not mean he wouldn't sit down with a leader for talks. For him, such meetings are a means to break political isolation," Zelenskyy noted.

In a call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, Putin said Russia had never rejected and was still open to resuming the talks broken off by Ukraine.

Putin told Scholz that any agreement to end the conflict must take Russian security interests into account, reflect "new territorial realities" and eliminate the original causes of the conflict, according to a Kremlin readout.

In the interview, Zelenskyy also conceded that the battlefield situation in eastern Ukraine was difficult and Russia was making advances. Russian defense ministry on Saturday announced control of two villages in Donetsk as the conflicts drags on for more than two years since February 2022.

(With input from agencies)