Zelenskiy says talks with Russia need 'more momentum'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that peace negotiations with Russia needed "more momentum" and that he had asked new National Security and Defence Council secretary Rustem Umerov to "intensify the negotiation track".

Two rounds of talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey earlier this year have yielded little more than an agreement to exchange prisoners and soldiers' remains. No date has been set for a new round of talks.

"The implementation of the agreements from the second Istanbul meeting is ongoing," Zelenskiy wrote on X. "This process needs more momentum."

Russia, which is continuing a grinding offensive along much of the eastern front, has repeatedly said it is ready for a new round of talks but has not backed down from what Kyiv and its allies describe as its maximalist war aims.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has sharpened his tone against Russia in recent weeks amid worsening air strikes on Ukrainian cities, threatened harsher sanctions on Russia earlier this week if a peace deal was not reached within 50 days.

Zelenskiy added that he was also assigning Umerov, who until a major government reshuffle on Thursday had served as defence minister, to work on weapons agreements with Kyiv's allies.

Kyiv, which still relies on Western partners for more than half of its battlefield supply, is hoping a scaled-up domestic defence industry will help fend off a bigger and better-armed Russian war machine.

"We must fully implement every agreement with our partners on weapons supplies," Zelenskiy wrote, "as well as new special agreements on establishing joint manufacturing and building production facilities on partners' territories."