War in Ukraine must end ‘this fall’

kyiv has asked its Western allies to redouble pressure on Moscow

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky called on NATO countries to pressure Russia to accept kyiv’s peace terms this fall. He made the remarks during a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Regular meetings at Ramstein are intended to coordinate military aid to kyiv.

Zelensky urged Western countries to help organize joint production of weapons on Ukrainian soil, including drones and missiles.

“To achieve this, we need funding. We are ready to quickly produce anything that will help us end this war, including by putting decisive pressure on Russia for a real peace,” he added. Zelensky said, according to his website.

“Let us make this fall a moment for Russian aggression to end – in a way that will end the war and restore a reliable international security order.”

Austin also stressed the importance of weapons manufacturing, saying that the United States “working with Ukraine to design and build a substitute for the S-300 surface-to-air missile system and the R-27 air-to-air missile.” Washington has set aside more than $200 million to buy “critical components” to enable Ukraine to manufacture drones and electronic warfare systems, he said.

kyiv has suffered several setbacks on the battlefield in recent months, with Russian troops steadily advancing in Donbass and advancing towards the town of Pokrovsk.

Hoping to force Moscow to recall most of its troops from Donbass, Ukraine launched an invasion of Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, capturing several villages and the border town of Sudzha. But the Russian advance has not stopped.

By sending its best equipped and most experienced units to Kursk, the Ukrainian army has “weakened” Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Russian forces had only increased their advance in Donbass.

Peace talks between Moscow and kyiv collapsed in the spring of 2022. Moscow has since said Zelensky’s demand to restore Ukraine to its 1991 borders was completely unacceptable.

On Monday, Putin said Russia was ready to reopen peace talks, but only on its own terms. But Moscow must neutralize Ukrainian attempts to “destabilize the situation” First in Kursk and other border regions, he stressed.