WEB DESK
Russian officials said they were ready for another round of talks with Ukraine even as Russian forces shelled multiple Ukrainian cities Wednesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a Russian delegation was ready to hold a second round of talks with Ukrainian officials, after a first round earlier this week yielded only an agreement for further negotiations.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine is also ready to engage in diplomacy, but “not ready to accept any Russian ultimatums at all.” He added that it was not yet known when a new round of talks would take place.
Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Russia should first halt its fighting in order to give negotiations a chance.
Violence Wednesday included shelling of the southeastern port city of Mariupol, and unconfirmed Russian military claims of seizing the southern city of Kherson.
In a video released Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled a bombing Tuesday that hit a TV tower in Kyiv located next to Holocaust memorial site Babi Yar.
“This is beyond humanity. Such missile strike means that for many Russians our Kyiv is absolute foreign. They know nothing about our capital, about our history. They have orders to erase our history, our country and all of us.”
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, called on Jews across the world to “not stay silent” about what is happening in Ukraine.
“Because Nazism is born in silence. Scream about murdering of civilians, scream about murdering of Ukrainians,” he said.
A key Russian opposition leader urged people in Russia and across the world to hold daily protests against the invasion of Ukraine.
A spokesman for longtime Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny posted on the jailed opposition leader’s Twitter account that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not Russia” and that people “cannot wait any longer” to rally against the invasion.
Navalny called for people “in Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the planet” to gather in the main square of their towns and demonstrate.