REUTERS, Kyiv

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky published an open letter to President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in which he proposed the two leaders meet to agree an end to more than four years of war, warning that Kyiv stood ready to fight on otherwise.

In his letter, which the president’s office said had been sent to other countries, including the United States, Zelensky said the majority of Russians had grown tired of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, inflation and fuel shortages, and were ready for peace.

Zelensky said that with the United States focused on the conflict in Iran “it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention”.

And the path to peace, he said, had to start at the frontline, “the line from which diplomacy must begin”. Ukraine, Zelensky said, stood for “a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations. This is standard practice.”

He said the United States “has the capability to monitor a ceasefire along the line where hostilities stop”.

Zelensky proposed setting a clear date for a meeting and said several countries had “traditionally hosted leaders to resolve issues of war and peace”, citing Switzerland, Turkey and the countries of the Arab world.

Meanwhile, Russia fired hundreds of drones at Ukraine between late Thursday and early yesterday, killing seven people and destroying a factory that produces milk products for children, authorities said.

Images published by Ukraine’s state emergency service showed the ruins of a building bearing the logo of Ukrainian dairy producer “Yagotynske for Kids”, its facade partly destroyed and flames visible on one floor. Five Azerbaijanis were killed and three wounded in a drone attack on two foreign cargo ships in the Sea of Azov, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said yesterday.

Russia said Ukraine carried out the attack. The head of Ukraine’s drone forces said Kyiv had struck vessels transporting illegal cargo in the area, without commenting on the statements by Baku and Moscow or the reports of crew killed.

A sea drone that exploded early yesterday in Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta without causing casualties is of Ukrainian origin, the Russian embassy said in a statement on Telegram.