Ukraine President Calls for Summit with Biden and Putin

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has proposed holding a summit on the crisis in his country with his US and Russian counterparts, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin.

 

On Tuesday, he proposed another summit meeting of four countries that were previously involved in talks about ending the crisis in the country. He was referring to, in addition to his own country, Germany, France and Russia. These four began consultations on Ukraine during World War II commemorations in Normandy in June 2014.

According to Zelensky, the current tension between the West and Russia over Ukraine threatens the survival of his country. The protracted conflicts in and about Ukraine stem from the ouster of an elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine in 2014. The West sees this as the result of a popular uprising; the Kremlin sees it as the result of a coup d’état mainly encouraged by the US. which would have been carefully prepared in Washington.

Biden visited Ukraine six times during Barack Obama’s presidency (2009-2017) as Vice President. Shortly after the change of power in Kyiv in early 2014, Russia angrily annexed the Crimean peninsula. Moscow has since supported pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine. There has actually been a civil war there since 2014.