Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for face-to-face negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin - a week after the latter declared war on his country.
In a message directed at Putin, Zelensky said during a televised news conference on Thursday, March 3, according to a translation from the Financial Times' Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon: "Good Lord, what do you want? Leave our land. If you don't want to leave now, sit down with me at the negotiating table."
"But not from 30 meters away, like with Macron and Scholz," Zelensky added, seemingly referring to the long table Putin uses in meetings.
He continued, according to The Independent: "I don't bite. What are you afraid of?"
"Any words are more important than shots," he added, as he emphasized the need to come to a solution. Although he stressed that the possibility of another round of talks doesn't seem likely.
Zelensky's words at the news conference come exactly a week after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine sent diplomats for a round of peace talks at the Ukraine-Belarus border on Monday, February 28, however, little was achieved as a result.
Zelensky is now requesting that Western countries impose a no-fly zone over parts of his country, saying in a statement to Axios: "If the West does this, Ukraine will defeat the aggressor with much less blood."
"If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes," he said during the news conference on Thursday.
However, a no-fly zone would potentially require the US military to directly engage with Russian air forces.
And US Representative Sara Jacobs, a California Democrat, has warned in a statement over the weekend that if NATO and the United States implemented a no-fly zone, they could find themselves involved in the war.
She went on to say that a no-fly zone is something that is enforced, rather than just announced.
"It requires our fighter jets to go directly against Russian fighter jets, to get them to stay out of a certain airspace," she said.
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