KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that countries of the Global South should push Russia towards making peace in its war with Ukraine, including by helping bring Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

“I reaffirmed my readiness for any format of meeting with the head of Russia. However, we see that Moscow is once again trying to drag everything out even further,” Zelenskiy wrote on X after speaking with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“It is important that the Global South sends relevant signals and pushes Russia toward peace.”

Challenge to Macron on Ukraine

France summoned the Italian ambassador after Italy’s deputy prime minister challenged the French president for suggesting that European soldiers be deployed in Ukraine in a post-war settlement, a French diplomatic source said on Saturday.

Moscow says it seized two villages in Ukraine’s Donetsk

Asked earlier this week to comment on French President Emmanuel Macron’s appeals to deploy European soldiers in Ukraine after any settlement with Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini used a Milanese dialect phrase loosely translatable as “get lost”.

“You go there if you want. Put your helmet on, your jacket, your rifle and you go to Ukraine,” he told reporters, referring to Macron. Salvini, the populist leader of the right-wing League party and also Italy’s transport minister in the nationalist, conservative government led by Giorgia Meloni, has repeatedly criticised Macron, especially over Ukraine.

The Italian ambassador was summoned on Friday, the diplomatic source said, marking the latest in a series of diplomatic clashes between Paris and Rome before and after Meloni took power in 2022.

“The ambassador was reminded that these remarks ran counter to the climate of trust and the historical relationship between our two countries, as well as to recent bilateral developments, which have highlighted strong convergences between the two countries, particularly with regard to unwavering support for Ukraine,” the source said.

Macron, a vocal supporter of Ukraine over its war with Russia, has been working with other world leaders, notably British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to mobilise support for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire.

Russia captures two villages

Russia on Saturday said its forces in east Ukraine had taken two villages in the Donetsk region, upping military pressure on the ground as world leaders struggle to broker an end to the conflict.

Russian forces are slowly advancing in the embattled eastern region, grinding closer to Kyiv’s key defensive line in costly metre-for-metre battles.

Moscow’s defence ministry said on Telegram that Russian forces captured the villages of Sredneye and Kleban-Byk.

The taking of Kleban-Byk would mark a further advance towards Kostiantynivka — a key fortified town on the road to Kramatorsk, where a major Ukrainian logistics base is located.

On Friday, Russia said its troops had captured three villages in the Donetsk region it claimed to have annexed in September 2022.

The latest Russian advances come as hopes dim for a summit between Russian and Ukrainian presidents — a solution campaigned for by US President Donald Trump as part of his efforts to end the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “no meeting” was planned as Trump’s mediation efforts appeared to stall, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was trying to prolong the offensive.

Trump told reporters he would make an “important” decision in two weeks on Ukraine peace efforts, specifying that Moscow could face massive sanctions — or he might “do nothing”.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2025