Zelensky diplomatic push continues on return from White House visit

The day after Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Washington, the Ukrainian president met another important ally, Polish President Andrzej Duda, on his way back home and separately received an invitation to come to Brussels.
Duda and Zelensky discussed "strategic plans for the future, bilateral relations and interactions at an international level in 2023," Zelensky said via his Telegram channel.
Zelensky thanked Duda for Poland's "unwavering and powerful support," describing him as "a friend of Ukraine."
The precise location of the meeting was not disclosed. Video footage showed Zelensky disembarking from a plane and later embracing Duda before the two sat down at a table.
Earlier, Zelensky was invited to come to Brussels in February, with an EU-Ukraine summit confirmed for February 3, according to a spokesperson for EU Council President Charles Michel.
Zelensky was on the return from a visit to Washington on Wednesday, his first trip abroad since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine.
He left Washington with a pledge of $1.85 billion in additional military assistance, including the Patriot air defence system.
Russia will target the Patriot system once it gets to Ukraine with a view to destroying it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov has said in Moscow.
"Demilitarization is after all one of the goals of the special military operation," Peskov said in remarks reported by Russia's Interfax news agency. The US and other countries were supplying Ukraine with increasingly sophisticated weapons, he said. "This will not contribute to a rapid resolution of the situation – on the contrary."
Zelensky's visit to Washington proved that neither Washington nor Kiev were prepared to listen to Moscow's viewpoint. "And there have been no genuine calls for peace," Peskov said.
That viewpoint was echoed by the Russian President Vladimir Putin who told a press conference that Ukraine had "shied away" from negotiations.
"All armed conflicts end with negotiations, and Russia has never shied away from this, unlike Ukraine," he said in Yekaterinburg.
"The sooner Kiev realizes that talks are necessary, the better," he said.
Russia has now lost more than 100,000 soldiers in its war in Ukraine, according to a claim by the general staff of Ukraine's military.
According to independent media, this may mean that they were killed or so seriously injured that they had to leave military service.
Russia had recently spoken of around 6,000 soldiers killed in its own ranks. Independent Russian media, meanwhile, have already identified more than 10,000 Russian casualties by name.
White House communications director John Kirby on Thursday accused Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has close links to Putin and who recently acknowledged establishing the Wagner mercenary group, as being "willing to just throw Russian bodies into the meat grinder" in eastern Ukraine.
The US administration estimates that there are currently 50,000 mercenaries fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine, including 40,000 convicts fighting with the Wagner group.
Ukraine itself does not name its own casualties in its daily military reports. The presidential office in Kiev had recently spoken of more than 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed.
One of the flashpoints of the conflict so far has been the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, and negotiations over a way to prevent a nuclear catastrophe ther took a step forward on Thursday/
Russia said that it largely agrees with the initiative by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to establish a safety zone around the plant.
Moscow and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi were very close in their positions on the safety zone, the Russian Federal Agency for Atomic Energy Rosatom announced after a meeting of various representatives from the Russian authorities with Grossi in Moscow.
During his visit to Moscow, Grossi is trying to ease the situation around the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which is occupied by Russian troops and has been repeatedly shelled during the war.
The IAEA chief's initiative envisages Russia and Ukraine committing to cease firing on the nuclear facility. At the same time, Russia is to withdraw heavy weapons from the nuclear power plant in order to de-escalate the situation.
In Moscow, the Argentinian official negotiated with representatives of Rosatom, the technical supervisory authority, the Foreign Ministry and the Russian National Guard, which has units stationed at the nuclear power plant.
Grossi spoke afterwards of an important round of negotiations. "It's key that the zone focuses solely on preventing a nuclear accident," he tweeted.