West prepares to fast-track weapons to Ukraine; Zelenskyy agrees to negotiate with Russia
KYIV, Ukraine — With Western powers preparing to fast-track arms shipments to Ukraine and initiate a no-holds-barred push to punish Moscow both diplomatically and financially, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to negotiations with Russia on Sunday “without preconditions.”
The prospect of talks dangled — however improbably — the hope of a resolution of the colossal crisis, heightened further Sunday when President Vladimir Putin of Russia placed his nuclear forces on high alert even as his invading troops bore down on Kyiv and continued their thrusts toward a number of cities across Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government plans to dispatch a delegation to meet with its Russian counterparts on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River, according to a statement issued by Zelenskyy’s official channel on the Telegram messaging app.
Earlier in the day, an aide to Putin and the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, had set a 3 p.m. deadline for Ukraine to join negotiations, saying that rejecting the proposal would put “all responsibility for the bloodshed” on the Ukrainian side, according to a report from Russian state
