It's time to start peace talks between Ukraine and russia – Finnish president

Currently, Ukraine is in a much stronger position thanks to help from the United States and Europe, while russia was unable to break through the front. We are reaching a point where peace talks must begin.

This follows from a statement by the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, in an interview with Le Monde.

According to him, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, "is playing his cards right" and seized the initiative, as the country's position is now much stronger than in the previous two months. American aid has been unblocked, and Europe's problems with the delivery of equipment to Kyiv have been resolved, Stubb said.

"There is no russian breakthrough either. Russia, according to our information, is not advancing, and its losses are even greater than before. Putin thought that the West would tire of the war. He thought that he could wait for the American elections. But he was wrong... We are reaching points when you need to start negotiations. You have to distinguish between a possible discussion process, which is not an end in itself, and the start of negotiations does not mean that you are going to make concessions," the Finnish president emphasized.

However, russia's withdrawal from the occupied territories cannot be put forward as a prerequisite for possible discussions, Stubb noted. In his opinion, for the success of the beginning of the negotiation process, Zelenskyy needs four elements - a decision regarding the territories occupied by russia, security guarantees for Ukraine, justice for the prosecution of war criminals of the russian federation, and support for the recovery of the country.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on July 28, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine will develop an action plan to achieve peace by the end of November.

On July 24, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi believes that the settlement of the "conflict in Ukraine" should take place at the negotiating table, but the conditions and time are not yet ripe.

On July 15, it became known that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sent the leaders of the EU countries a proposal to end the war in Ukraine.