Ukrainian leader calls for wider international support to get Russia to negotiating table amid faltering peace efforts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on countries in the Global South to support diplomatic efforts to push Russia to agree to end its war with Ukraine.

In a social media post following talks with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday, Zelenskyy stressed that the conflict “must be brought to an end” and that “the killings and destruction must be stopped”.

“I reaffirmed my readiness for any format of meeting with the head of Russia,” the Ukrainian leader said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“However, we see that Moscow is once again trying to drag everything out even further. It is important that the Global South sends relevant signals and pushes Russia toward peace.

The comments come as a renewed diplomatic effort, spearheaded by United States President Donald Trump with support from European countries, to push Moscow to end its war in Ukraine has appeared to stall.

On Friday, Trump expressed frustration with Moscow over the lack of progress in efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement to end the war, despite his recent meeting with Putin in Alaska.

The US president renewed a threat that he would consider imposing sanctions on Russia if there was no momentum within the next two weeks.

Trump has been trying to arrange a summit between Putin and Zelenskyy, which has long been sought by the Ukrainian leader, to discuss an end to the war.

But on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there were no plans for such a meeting.

Lavrov said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” programme that Putin had made clear he was ready to meet Zelenskyy, provided there was a proper agenda for such a session, something the Russian foreign minister said was lacking for now.

“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov said.

Ramaphosa, the South African president, added his voice to the calls for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy on Saturday, stressing “the urgency of holding bilateral and trilateral meetings between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine and the United States”.

Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement that such talks will be “key to signal a firm commitment to ending the war”.

The South African leader, who currently chairs the G20, also spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, the statement added.

“President Ramaphosa calls on all parties to seize this moment and sustain the momentum towards peace between Russia and Ukraine,” it said.

PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA TALKS RUSSIA-UKRAINE PEACE WITH EUROPEAN LEADERS

President @CyrilRamaphosa has today, 23 August 2025, held talks with European leaders on the Russia-Ukraine peace efforts.

The series of telephone calls held today follows meetings hosted by President Donald…

— The Presidency 🇿🇦 (@PresidencyZA) August 23, 2025

Amid the push for a diplomatic resolution, fighting has continued to grind on the battlefield.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement on Telegram on Saturday that its forces in eastern Ukraine had taken two villages in the Donetsk region, Sredneye and Kleban-Byk.

That followed the capture of three other villages in the region a day earlier.

The capture of Kleban-Byk would represent further progress towards Kostiantynivka – a key town on the road to Kramatorsk, where a major Ukrainian logistics base is located.

Ukraine’s military did not acknowledge that any of the villages had changed hands. But it said its forces had recaptured from Russian troops a settlement further west on the edge of Dnipropetrovsk region.

Separately, the mayor of Moscow said on Telegram that Russian air defences on Saturday downed a drone headed for the Russian capital and specialists were examining fragments on the ground.

Several airports in central Russia suspended operations because of concerns over safe airspace, the country’s air transport agency Rosaviatsia said.

In a series of announcements over several hours, Rosaviatsia said operations had been suspended at airports in Izhevsk, Nizhniy Nolvgorod, Samara, Penza, Tambov and Ulyanovsk, east and southeast of Moscow.