KYIV — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow on Thursday of shirking a meeting between him and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, despite United States-led attempts to arrange a summit to end the war.

US President Donald Trump is trying to end Russia’s three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine by bringing both Zelenskyy and Putin to the negotiating table.

But despite high-profile talks with Putin in Alaska last week and separate meetings with Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington on Monday, there has been little tangible progress toward a peace deal.

Zelenskyy said Russia was “trying to wriggle out of holding a meeting.”

“Frankly speaking, the signals coming from Russia are simply outrageous ... They don’t want to end this war,” the Ukrainian leader said during an evening address. “They continue their massive attacks on Ukraine and their ferocious assaults along the front line.”

Zelenskyy has signaled willingness to meet with Putin, but only after his allies agree on security guarantees for Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks once the fighting stops.

He has also said any meeting should take place in a “neutral” European country — ruling out a summit in Moscow — and rejected the idea of China helping to guarantee Ukrainian security.

Russia, meanwhile, said Ukraine did not appear to be interested in “long-term” peace, accusing Kyiv of seeking guarantees incompatible with Moscow’s demands.

Trump has set a two-week time frame for assessing the chances of a peace agreement, telling the right-wing media outlet Newsmax that Washington would “have to maybe take a different tack” if the talks fell through.

Fresh Russian barrage 

Zelenskyy also warned that both Moscow and Kyiv were preparing for further fighting.

Russia was building up troops on the southern front line, and Ukraine was test-launching a new long-range cruise missile, he said.

His comments came after Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles against Ukraine overnight — the biggest barrage since mid-July — killing at least one person in the western city of Lviv and wounding many others.

Russian missiles also targeted an American-owned factory complex in the town of Mukachevo in western Ukraine, wounding 23 people, the head of the regional military administration said.

Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, said Moscow aimed to “destroy and humiliate” US businesses in the country.

Zelenskyy: Russia trying to 'wriggle out' of peace talks

Zelenskyy called the attack “a deliberate strike specifically on American-owned property.”

A shelling of the city of Kherson killed one person and wounded more than a dozen, a local official said.

Zelenskyy: Russia trying to 'wriggle out' of peace talks

And in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, two people were killed and at least 21 wounded after Ukrainian shelling, said Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed regional chief., This news data comes from:http://redcanaco.com

‘Lack of will’

France condemned Moscow’s overnight strikes as showing a “lack of will to seriously engage in peace talks.”

A group of allies, led by France and the United Kingdom, are putting together a military coalition to support security guarantees for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said Kyiv hoped to “have an understanding of the security guarantees architecture within seven to 10 days,” in comments to reporters released for publication on Thursday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Ukraine of making unrealistic security demands.

Any deployment of European troops to the country would be “absolutely unacceptable,” he said, accusing Ukrainian officials of showing no interest in a “sustainable, fair, long-term settlement.”

Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine had successfully tested a long-range cruise missile, known as Flamingo, that can strike targets as far as 3,000 kilometers away and could be in mass production by February.