The Albany Gazette - UK, France, Germany back Zelensky's call for Putin meeting

Zelensky met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at 10 Downing Street for talks as Russia's war has stretched into its fifth year.

The leaders "supported the proposal for a direct dialogue between Ukraine and Russia -- with active US and European participation -- to bring about a ceasefire and support further negotiations", they said in a joint statement with Zelensky.

"The current line of contact should be the starting point for negotiations," it said.

"International borders must not be changed by force."

Zelensky proposed a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an open letter on Thursday.

Putin ruled out the move, saying he saw "no point" in meeting Zelensky until a possible peace deal had been agreed.

The Ukrainian president told Sky News on Sunday evening he had also met with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in Kyiv to pass on a message to Putin.

"You are fighting against us on our territory," Zelensky said of his message to Abramovich, who is sanctioned by the UK and European Union over his ties to the Kremlin following Russia's invasion.

"We will not leave and we will not go out from our territory, no we will not give you victory," he said, adding he had reiterated his request to meet Putin face-to-face.

Kyiv has been asking its Western allies for more ammunition deliveries for its air defences as Ukraine endures daily Russian strikes. Zelensky is seeking ways for the allies to further pressure Russia to end the fighting.

Earlier on Sunday, the Ukrainian president wrote on X that he would be meeting with Britain's King Charles III on Monday.

- Nuclear site targeted -

On Sunday, Russia fired waves of drones and other munitions at Ukraine, with one of the attacks damaging a nuclear storage facility near the Chernobyl disaster site, Ukrainian officials said.

Radiation levels at the facility remained within normal limits following the attack, although its fuel reception building was "partially destroyed", according to Ukraine's nuclear energy operator, Energoatom.

Moscow and Kyiv have intensified drone strikes on each other in recent months, as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war remain stalled and sidetracked by the conflict in the Middle East.

Zelensky, in an earlier online post, said Russia had used an Iranian-designed Shahed drone to "hit one of the buildings of the Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility" in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

"As of now, there are no readings exceeding normal background radiation levels. But there is certainly an increase in Russia's brazenness, which long ago went off the charts," he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was dispatching a team to inspect the damage, calling the incident "deeply concerning".

The facility is located in a remote area of forest around a dozen kilometres (seven miles) from the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and is designed to house spent fuel from Ukraine's three active nuclear plants.

- Deadly strikes -

Both sides accused each other of renewed attacks on civilians Sunday.

A Russian bombardment of a public transport stop in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region left at least two people dead, while a nearby drone strike killed a 56-year-old minibus driver, authorities said.

Separate Russian attacks on the central Dnipropetrovsk region killed two men, governor Oleksandr Ganzha posted on Telegram.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the Belgorod border region killed a woman and injured her husband, local authorities said.

Russia now occupies around a fifth of its neighbour: the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, most of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk -- collectively referred to as the Donbas -- and large parts of the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

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(P.Davis--TAG)