Putin ignoring me amid troop build-up, says Ukraine leader

The president of Ukraine has accused Vladimir Putin of ignoring attempts to reach him by telephone to defuse the rapidly growing military stand-off between Ukraine and Russia.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said via his spokesman yesterday that he had asked the Kremlin for a phone call with the Russian president more than three weeks ago, but had so far been ignored.

“The Kremlin, of course, has the request to talk to Vladimir Putin.

“We haven’t received a response so far and very much hope that it’s not a refusal of dialogue,” Iuliia Mendel said.

She added that the request was lodged on March 26, when four Ukrainian troops were killed in a mortar attack in eastern Ukraine.

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said yesterday he hadn’t seen any requests from Mr Zelenskiy “in recent days”. Russia has moved large numbers of troops towards its borders with Ukraine over the past month, fuelling fears that it may be planning a repeat of its 2014 assault on its eastern neighbour, when it annexed Crimea and propped up two breakaway states in the eastern Donbas region.

Ms Mendel said Ukrainian intelligence believed the Kremlin had amassed 42,000 troops in Crimea and another 42,000 in regions of Russia bordering eastern Ukraine, and that more soldiers continued to arrive.

Mr Zelenskiy is expected to fly to Paris to discuss the crisis with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, in the near future.

The Kremlin has not given an explanation for the troop movements, but said it reserves the right to intervene in eastern Ukraine to protect Russian passport holders.

Last week it rejected calls to withdraw the troops, saying it was entitled to deploy its forces as it saw fit within its own territory. Yesterday footage emerged of the Russian military build-up 480km south of Moscow.

Sky News found troops and vehicles bearing the registration number of Russia’s Urals district, hundreds of miles further east, in a temporary camp a few hours’ drive from the Ukrainian border. 

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]