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Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame over the worsening situation
in the eastern Donbass region, where Ukrainian troops have
battled Russian-backed forces in a conflict Kyiv says has killed
14,000 people since 2014.
Iuliia Mendel, Zelenskiy's spokeswoman, told Reuters on Monday
the Ukrainian leader had so far tried and failed to speak to
Putin about the matter.
"The president's office, of course, made a request to speak with
Vladimir Putin. We have not received an answer yet and we very
much hope that this is not a refusal of dialogue," said Mendel.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had not seen such a
request for talks "in recent days" and was unaware one had been
recently made.
When asked if Putin had anything to say to Zelenskiy, Peskov
said he hoped that what he called "political wisdom" would
prevail in Kyiv when it came to de-escalating and avoiding a
potential war.
Mendel said Russia had massed more than 40,000 troops on
Ukraine's eastern border and more than 40,000 troops in Crimea.
Those figures are higher than those previously disclosed by the
head of Ukraine's armed forces to parliament in March.
Zelenskiy is due to head to Paris for talks on Russia's troop
build-up and the escalating conflict in Donbass, she added.
A meeting between Zelenskiy and French President Emmanuel Macron
is expected by the end of this week.
Ukraine fears the Kremlin is engineering a crisis to rally
Russians around a foreign enemy ahead of parliamentary elections
in September and shift the narrative away from domestic
irritants such as jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny, its
security chief told Reuters last week.
Putin on Friday accused Ukraine of "dangerous provocative
actions" in the Donbass region. The Kremlin says Russia is free
to move forces around its own territory as it sees fit for
defensive purposes.
The standoff has sparked concern from Ukraine's Western backers.
Washington and the NATO alliance have accused Russia of a
"provocative" build-up.
Zelenskiy has spoken of the need for NATO to admit Ukraine, a
step Russia, citing its own security concerns, opposes.
"On the one hand, you cannot panic, on the other hand, you need
to understand that Russia has shown more than once that it can
invade different countries," Mendel said.
(Reporting by Ilya Zhegulev; writing by Matthias Williams;
Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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