Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to start peace talks with Russia, his office said Sunday. Following a phone call with Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, Zelenskyy’s office said he had agreed to send a delegation to a meeting on the Belarusian-Ukrianian border near the Pripyat river. The talks would be the first to take place since Russia invaded Ukraine. His office said the talks would be held without preconditions.
“We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River,” Zelenskyy said in a statement. Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian nuclear deterrent forces put on high alert amid tensions with the West over his invasion of Ukraine. Putin ordered the Russian defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty”. His order raised the threat that the tensions with the West over the invasion in Ukraine could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting this evening to discuss the situation in war-torn Ukraine, immediately after his return from Uttar Pradesh where he has gone for election campaign. A large number of Indians, mostly students, have been stuck in Ukraine following Russia’s attack on the country. India has begun evacuating them, and over 900 people have been brought back since Saturday. Modi has also spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, with India calling for dialogue to defuse the crisis. Earlier on Thursday, Modi had chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security after Russia launched an attack on Ukraine.