What is behind Zelensky’s changed stance on Russia-Ukraine peace talks?

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday admitted that negotiations with Russia might not happen. The statement comes as the comedian turned politician is set to address the United Nations Security Council after evidence emerged of civilian massacres in areas that Russian forces recently left. 

Also read: Russia removed two-third of its troops from Kyiv, ‘consolidating in Belarus’: Pentagon

Mass graves were found in areas surrounding Ukrainian capital Kyiv. The mayor of the northern town of Bucha Anatoliy Fedoruk, after admitting that the city had about 280 civilians buried in mass graves, said that Moscow will not be forgiven for its actions.  Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Iryna Venediktova said that the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces. 

Also read: Human rights watchdog warns Bucha could be replicated on ‘very large scale’: Report

Russia has been facing international backlash over the massacre. The European Union, Germany, United Kingdom, NATO and the United States are amongst the parties that have called the killings as war crimes and/or genocide. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the killing a “genocide.”

“Dead people have been found in barrels, basements, strangled, tortured,” said Zelensky, who then again called on Russia to move quickly to negotiate an agreement to end the war.

Also read: Explained: Who’s a war criminal, and who gets to decide?

However, the President’s statement to the Ukrainian state TV on Tuesday has cast doubt on the possibility of a meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. 

“It might happen that there will be no negotiations,” Zelensky said. 

He further added that it ‘would be understandable to not speak to Putin’. 

“It would be easy to say I’m not going to talk to you — and it would be understandable, after what you have done, that’s why.”

Zelensky said that that the meeting could happen only if Russia is ready to “bear all the punishments” of committing genocide. 

Also read: EU says Russia will be ‘held accountable’ for ‘atrocities’ in Ukraine’s Bucha

“And in this meeting, we could find the way out of this situation, without losing our territory. I think that this is the bar we have to set for these negotiations. And then we will see. It might happen that there will be no negotiations. It might happen.”

During his visit to Bucha on Monday, Zelensky had said that it was “very difficult to negotiate” with Russia “when you see what they have done here.”

Western nations expelled dozens more of Moscow’s diplomats and weighed further sanctions as they expressed their revulsion at what they say are war crimes.