MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump has exerted more pressure on Ukraine than on Russia, said Vladimir Zelensky at a briefing after talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"From the very beginning, you saw the position of the United States, the position of President [Donald] Trump, and that was to put pressure on both sides. I think there was more pressure on us than on Russia. This is my position," Zelensky said.
Zelensky, who had previously rejected a ceasefire proposed by Russia, believes that "it is necessary to put pressure on the side that does not want to put an end to the war."
On May 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Ukraine to resume direct negotiations, interrupted in 2022, without preconditions, on May 15 in Istanbul to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and possibly achieve a ceasefire.
As Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova later said, there is absolute logic in choosing the venue: negotiations are resuming where they were interrupted at the insistence of Great Britain, which put pressure on Kiev three years ago.