United States President Donald Trump has offered to join the talks that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin suggested should be held directly with Ukraine, after criticism of the Western “ultimatums” to end the conflict between the two Slavic nations.

Trump said on Monday he was “thinking about actually flying over” to the Turkish city of Istanbul to attend the negotiations expected to take place on Thursday. The initiative was welcomed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but there was no immediate reaction from Moscow.

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“All of us in Ukraine would appreciate it if President Trump could be there with us at this meeting in Turkey. This is the right idea. We can change a lot,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump publicly asked Zelenskyy to attend, after Putin on Sunday proposed the direct talks following a rejection of a 30-day ceasefire Ukraine and its Western allies insisted should come first.

The Ukrainian leader said he would, but that Putin should also attend in person. On Tuesday, his adviser Mykhailo Podolyak reiterated that Zelenskyy would only meet Putin and no other members of the Russian delegation.

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The Kremlin has made no comment on whether or not Putin will travel to Turkiye himself. “We are committed to a serious search for ways of a long-term peaceful settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

If Zelenskyy and Putin were to meet on Thursday, it would be their first face-to-face meeting since December 2019.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said its air defence units destroyed all 10 drones that Russia launched overnight on Tuesday. This is the lowest number of drones that Russia has launched in an overnight attack in several weeks.

The Ukrainian military’s general staff said as of 10pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday, there had been 133 clashes with Russian forces along the front line since midnight, when the ceasefire proposed by European powers was to have come into effect.

Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, was quoted by Zelenskyy as saying the heaviest fighting still gripped the Donetsk region, the focus of the eastern front, and Russia’s western Kursk region, nine months after Kyiv’s forces staged a cross-border incursion.

Meanwhile, Russia accused Ukraine of attacking its Belgorod region, with the governor Vyacheslav Gladkov saying on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces used 65 drones and more than 100 rounds of ammunition to attack his region in the past day.

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