Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, added: “There are enough problems on both sides and… no one can do anything and substantively strengthen or advance their position. They’re there head-to-head, to the death, entrenched. People are dying.”
Russian forces have continued to bombard the battered city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region for the past week despite suffering heavy losses, according to the US.
But the vast frontline in Ukraine has moved little in the past year despite Kyiv’s gruelling months-long offensive.
Lukashenko, who has provided his country as a launch pad for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, said Kyiv’s demands for Russia to quit its territory needed to be resolved at the negotiating table “so nobody dies”.
In a question-and-answer video posted on the website of the Belarusian state news agency BelTA, he added: “We need to sit down at the negotiating table and come to an agreement. As I once said, no preconditions are needed. The main thing is that the ‘stop’ command is given.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated at the weekend at a gathering of more than 60 national security advisers that his 10-point peace plan, which includes calls for the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, is the only way to end the war.
The meeting, held behind closed doors in neutral Malta, was designed to help gauge Ukraine and the West’s ability to drum up continued support as the conflict in Israel dominates headlines, moving the focus from Kyiv.
Russia, which was absent, criticised Malta for hosting the talks after others in Jeddah and Copenhagen. Mr Zelensky said he longed for a day when human history “is the history of peace only”.
International law and the United Nations Charter spelt out this aspiration, he added. “But does the UN Charter work?” he asked in his address, shared on YouTube.
“Here, in Ukraine and in the Middle East and in African countries, the answer to this question is the cries of mothers burying their sons and daughters killed in wars, and the despair of children orphaned by wars. We can and must give a different answer. The world has seen too much blood.”
His 10-point peace plan includes calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops, protection of food and energy supplies, nuclear safety and the release of all prisoners.
