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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Kyiv is ready to resume three-way peace negotiations with Russia and the United States in the coming weeks, following what he described as productive contacts with American officials, while warning that Russia may be preparing a new offensive push through Belarus toward Kyiv.
Speaking in his nightly Telegram address, Zelenskyy expressed cautious optimism about a diplomatic opening but placed the onus on Moscow to engage. "I expect that the partners will also be ready and that the Russians will not hide," he said, urging both Washington and European partners to join what he called "meaningful trilateral communication."
The remarks came as the nearly three-year war has shown few signs of moving toward a negotiated settlement, and amid ongoing international efforts to bring both sides to the table.
The Ukrainian president said Russian forces are "considering scenarios" for strikes on Ukraine's northern regions along the Chernihiv-Kyiv corridor, using Belarusian territory as a staging ground, a route Russia used during its initial full-scale invasion in February 2022. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was already taking preventive defense measures along that axis and in parts of Russian territory "from where the threat comes."
He issued a direct warning to Minsk, saying Belarus would face "significant" consequences if it entered the conflict as an active participant. "Honestly, I am already tired of the constant threat to Ukraine that the Russians may at some point involve Belarus in the expansion of the war," Zelenskyy said.
Belarus, under President Alexander Lukashenko, has hosted Russian troops and allowed its territory to be used as a launchpad since the early weeks of the invasion, but has stopped short of deploying its own forces.
Zelenskyy also claimed that Ukraine's long-range strike campaign was meeting its objectives for May, citing a confirmed hit on oil refining infrastructure in Kstovo, a city in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region located roughly 800 kilometers from Ukraine's state border. "The defeat has been confirmed," he said of the strike.
He said the campaign was targeting refineries, fuel storage facilities, and other infrastructure tied to Russian oil revenues, a strategy Kyiv has pursued to degrade Moscow's capacity to finance and sustain its war effort.
Ukraine has increasingly relied on domestically produced long-range drones to reach deep into Russian territory, striking energy and logistics infrastructure that Western-supplied weapons, subject to use restrictions, cannot always target.
Zelenskyy's framing of talks as "trilateral" — involving Ukraine, Russia, and the United States — marks a notable emphasis on Washington's role as a direct party in any future negotiations, rather than a facilitator operating at arm's length. He said European involvement would also be a desirable outcome, calling it "the right result."
Kyiv has historically insisted that any peace framework must involve its Western partners and cannot be imposed bilaterally, a position that has at times put it at odds with proposals favoring direct Russia-Ukraine talks.
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