Zelenskyy urges more pressure on Putin to revive peace talks

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs “more pressure” on Vladimir Putin to bring Russia to the negotiating table, pressing for tougher sanctions and faster support as stalled peace talks collide with fresh warnings of new attacks. In an interview taped May 29 and aired May 31, the Ukrainian president argued that the lever left to the West is not sympathy but forceful, sustained pressure on Moscow.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine should keep pushing for peace talks before winter, when the military and diplomatic outlook could harden further. He said Russia began losing the battlefield initiative in December 2025, a shift he sees as the best opening for negotiations. His message was blunt: sanctions should be intensified, not eased, because pressure on Putin’s society is growing and Kyiv believes time is not on Russia’s side.

The diplomacy has stalled over territory. In February, U.S.-mediated talks in Geneva focused heavily on Russia’s demand that Ukraine formally and permanently cede occupied land in the east, especially in Donbas. Zelenskyy has repeatedly said Ukraine’s sovereignty and internationally recognized borders are nonnegotiable. U.S.-brokered talks have also lost momentum as Washington has focused attention on the conflict in Iran, leaving the peace track without the kind of sustained American drive that could force a breakthrough.

The battlefield backdrop is growing more dangerous. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was bracing for “big attacks” involving drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles after a major Russian assault that he said included 600 drones and dozens of missiles. That strike, on Kyiv, killed two people and wounded 83, and was described as the most significant aerial attack on the capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s biggest deficit is anti-ballistic missiles and has asked the United States for more Patriot systems in a letter to Congress and President Trump.

The pressure is not confined to Ukraine. A Russian drone entered Romanian airspace and struck an apartment building in Galați, while another hit a Turkish-owned cargo ship in the Black Sea, wounding two crew members. NATO said it concurred the drone was Russian and scrambled jets, while alliance officials condemned Russia’s “reckless behavior” and said they would defend every inch of Allied territory. Just days earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Secretary of State Marco Rubio of “systematic and consistent strikes” on Kyiv, even as the European Union said it was “not going anywhere” in the capital.

The peace effort has meanwhile been marked by short-lived pauses and prisoner exchanges. On May 8, Trump said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a three-day ceasefire and an exchange involving 2,000 prisoners of war, but both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violating earlier ceasefires, including an Orthodox Easter pause in April. For now, the question is whether the United States and Europe still have enough leverage, through sanctions enforcement, weapons delivery timelines and diplomatic isolation, to change Putin’s calculus before the war’s next winter closes in.