The mayor of the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, Gennady Trukhanov, believes the conflict with Russia should be resolved politically. Kiev and Moscow should cease the hostilities and return to the negotiating table, he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.
Although he supports the idea of Ukraine “returning to [its] borders of 1991,” including Donbass and Crimea, Trukhanov maintains that these disputes should be resolved at the negotiating table, not the battlefield.
“The lives of millions of people are at stake,” therefore “it is necessary to negotiate step by step, to seek compromises gradually, to avoid confrontation,” the mayor said. He argued that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has made “many” mistakes while in office.
Trukhanov criticized the government for concentrating too much power in Kiev at the expense of the regions.