Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia offered to host peace talks in Belarus, whose leader is a key ally of Vladimir Putin, a proposal he called impossible.
According to foreign media, the Ukrainian President said instead that the most realistic places for talks are Turkey, Switzerland or the Vatican, repeating the same suggestion by Donald Trump that has been rejected by Russia.
The first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine were held in the Turkish city of Istanbul on May 16, after US negotiators held separate talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in March, A2 CNN writes.
Trump's Vatican proposal is also supported by Pope Leo XIV, but three senior Russian sources told Reuters that Moscow does not see the Vatican as a serious venue for peace talks with Ukraine because it is the seat of Catholicism and is surrounded by Italy, a member of NATO and the EU.
Belarus, a former Soviet republic, has been ruled since 1994 by Alexander Lukashenko, who is often called Europe's last dictator and is a strong ally of Vladimir Putin, writes A2 CNN.
Belarus allowed its territory to be used by the Russian military to launch attacks on northern Ukraine, as part of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. (A2 Televizion)
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