Zelensky says Russian bombing must stop before cease-fire talks begin

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Russian bombing in the country must stop before Ukraine engages in cease-fire talks.

“It’s necessary to at least stop bombing people, just stop the bombing and then sit down at the negotiating table,” Zelensky told Reuters and CNN in an interview.

Russia and Ukraine engaged in talks for five hours this week but did not make significant progress toward de-escalation. Russian state media reported that a second round of talks was set for Wednesday.

Russia reportedly struck a TV tower in Kyiv on Tuesday near a Holocaust memorial, resulting in the death of five or more Ukrainians. The city of Kharkiv also came under heavy shelling Tuesday.

Zelensky used Tuesday’s interview to plead with members of NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine that would hinder the Russian air force.

“This is not about dragging NATO countries into war,” Zelensky said of his request. “The truth is everyone has long since been dragged into war and definitely not by Ukraine, but by Russia — a large-scale war is going on.”

Zelensky also repeated his request for Ukraine to be accepted into NATO, but said that President Biden had told him that now was not the time to make that move.

Zelensky asked that NATO nations introduce more significant support to Ukraine, even if it does not become part of the group.

“This means that we have our territorial integrity, that our borders are protected, we have special relations with all our neighbors, we are completely safe, and the guarantors that give us security, they guarantee this legally,” Zelensky said.

During the first round of post-invasion talks between Ukraine and Russia, Russian state media outlet TASS reported that Moscow demanded that Ukraine’s parliament commits to keeping the country out of the European Union, as well as demanding that Ukraine recognize the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and drop its demand that Crimea be returned to Ukraine. 

Russia seized Crimea, a peninsula along the northern coast of the Black Sea, from Ukraine in 2014 in a nearly bloodless occupation.

Ukraine, in turn, demanded a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory.