“I don’t bite. What are you afraid of?” Ukraine’s Zelensky calls for meeting with Putin 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet him, spicing the proposal with sarcasm.“Sit down with me to negotiate, just not at 30 meters,” he says, apparently referring to recent photos of Putin sitting at one end of an extremely long table when he met with French President Emmanuel Macron.

“I don’t bite. What are you afraid of?” Zelensky says at a news conference. 

Zelensky also doubled down on his face-to-face peace proposal by saying, “Any words are more important than shots.”

But Putin didn’t appear ready to relent during the televised opening of a meeting with his national security council.

The Russian president insisted that his invasion of Ukraine, now in its second week, was proceeding without a hitch. 

“I want to say that the special military operation is going strictly according to schedule, according to plan,” he said.

Putin repeated his spurious allegation that Russia was “at war with neo-Nazis” and added, “I will never give up on my conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.”

Putin — who is facing a war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor — also stated that Russian soldiers were fighting “courageously, like real heroes,” and said he’d ordered massive compensation to the families of those killed in battle.On Wednesday, Russia said 498 of its soldiers had died in Ukraine, but a Zelensky military adviser said the number actually exceeded 7,000.

During a Thursday phone call with Macron, Putin said that “Russia intends to continue the uncompromising fight against militants of nationalist armed groups,” according to a Kremlin account of the conversation.Putin also reportedly said Moscow’s peace talks with Kyiv included a demand for “the demilitarization and neutral status of Ukraine.”

“It was emphasized that the tasks of the special military operation will be fulfilled in any event, and attempts to gain time by dragging out negotiations will only lead to additional demands on Kyiv in our negotiating position,” the Kremlin said.