European and U.S. officials, including Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, reportedly convinced Zelensky that attending the peace talks would reflect positively on Kyiv, diplomats told the Washington Post.
"We discussed in detail the logic of further steps and shared our approaches... It is critical that Russia reciprocate Ukraine's constructive steps. So far, it has not. Moscow must understand that rejecting peace comes at a cost," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said.
"I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take. So far, the signals from them in the media are unconvincing," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The air raid was announced at around 2:30 p.m. local time, while the explosion sounded around 2:50 p.m. The number of victims killed rose to three, Sumy Oblast Governor Oleh Hryhorov reported at 8:42 p.m.
If confirmed, the decision would mark the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion that President Volodymyr Zelensky is absent, either physically or virtually, from a NATO summit.
The disclosure follows a warning from Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who on May 6 said Moscow was carrying out an "unprecedented" interference campaign.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in Kyiv on March 10. (President's Office)
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin met President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on March 10.
Zelensky and Marin visited wounded soldiers in a Kyiv hospital and attended the funeral of fallen soldier Dmytro Kotsiubailo, killed in action on March 7.
Zelensky thanked Finland for supplying aid to Ukraine's energy sector following Russia's mass missile strike.
The press release states that the primary focus of Zelensky's meeting with Marin was defense and security, with Zelensky extending his appreciation to Marin for Finland's defense aid.
Marin noted that Finland had just delivered its 14th defense aid package to Ukraine, which included heavy weaponry, and pledged to continue providing support.
"I am confident that we will continue to strengthen our collaboration in this area for the benefit of our peoples, as well as the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, Finland, and our European neighbors," Zelensky said.
Apart from defense and security, Zelensky and Marin also discussed the significance of halting Russia's attempts to evade sanctions by trading with third-party nations, particularly with regard to products that hold significance for the Russian military industry.
"We must come to the point that global sanctions are introduced that completely block any possibility of restoring the missile potential of the Russian Federation, obtaining new drones and technologies," Zelensky said.
Zelensky expressed his appreciation to Marin for Finland's backing of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, aimed at solving the worldwide food crisis resulting from Russia's obstruction of Ukraine's ports. Both leaders stressed the importance of extending the deal to additional ports.
Additionally, Marin voiced her support for Ukraine's peace plan and its endeavors to bring Russian war criminals to justice.
"We support President Zelensky's peace formula and want this plan to start working. Only lasting peace can give our family of European countries, the Euro-Atlantic family, peace and prosperity. We want Ukraine to join NATO as one of the allied states of this alliance," Marin said.
Marin also expressed Finland's willingness to take part in Ukraine's post-war recovery, reconstruction, and modernization efforts, with a particular focus on green energy, digitalization and telecommunications, education, energy and energy efficiency, waste processing, and water treatment, as well as construction, planning, and infrastructure.
Kate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent. The U.S. publisher Deep Vellum published her co-translation of Ukrainian author Oleh Sentsov’s Diary of a Hunger Striker in 2024. Some of her other writing and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine.
