Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has renewed his readiness to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in order to stop the war, at a time when US President Joe Biden stressed that the crisis in Ukraine is a global issue, not a regional one, amid pledges by 20 countries to hand over new weapons to Kyiv.

In his speech at the Davos Economic Forum, Zelensky said that Russia would not have launched a war on Ukraine if decisive sanctions had been imposed on it before, stressing that the return of the Crimea by force could lead to hundreds of thousands of casualties.

The Ukrainian president made it clear that no matter what others said, the Ukrainian people, as documented throughout history, are able to drive the occupiers out of their lands.

However, he wondered: But would Ukraine have been subjected to this war if our talk last year about the necessity of imposing just and rational sanctions on Russia had been attentive?

of course not.

Biden: Washington will stand by its "close domestic partners" (Reuters)

global issue

In related political developments, US President Joe Biden said at a meeting of the Quartet in Tokyo on Tuesday that the crisis in Ukraine is a global issue, not a regional one.

"This is more than just a European issue. It's a global issue," Biden added.

He stressed that Washington will stand with its "close local partners" to press for a free and open Indo-Pacific.

"Russia's attack on Ukraine only highlights the importance of those basic goals of international order, territorial integrity and sovereignty," he said.

On Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that about 20 countries had offered to provide new security assistance to Ukraine to counter Russian forces at a meeting of allies.

"The meeting was very successful. A lot of countries will provide ammunition, artillery, defense systems, tanks and other armor that they need" so much, Austin said.

The United States is coordinating the flow of international arms and support to Ukraine, as well as supporting Kyiv with billions of dollars by providing military equipment and training to its forces.

During this second meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, 44 countries met online to discuss the military support that should be provided to Ukraine at this stage of the conflict.

The Ukrainian Defense Minister informed the participants of the current military situation after 3 months since the Russian war on his country.

The Russian war on Ukraine has been going on for 3 months, causing great destruction (French)

Military base

This comes at a time when the Russian Information Agency reported, quoting a government official in the Ukrainian region of Kherson, as saying on Tuesday that the administration appointed by Russia for the region will ask Moscow to establish a military base on its territory.

And the Russian military operation in Ukraine began on February 24, as it captured in particular the Kherson region bordering the Crimea, which Moscow controls since a previous conflict in 2014.

Moscow installed a new administration there, and began introducing the Russian ruble as the region's currency.

"There should be a Russian military base in the Kherson region," Kirill Strimosov, deputy head of what Russia calls the "civil and military regional administration" in Kherson, told RIA.

"We will ask for this, and it is what the whole people want. This is essential and will be a guarantor of the security of the region and its residents," he added.


Initiative and developments

This comes at a time when the Russian Foreign Ministry revealed that it had received a proposal from Italy to end the war in Ukraine.

The Italian peace initiative proposes subjecting the fate of the Donbass region and the Crimea to a bilateral agreement between Moscow and Kiev, and ending the war with a peace agreement involving European parties.

In the field developments, the Donetsk region - the "Donetsk People's Republic" - is witnessing continuous shelling by the Ukrainian forces in response to the bombing by the Russian and Donetsk forces of positions controlled by the Ukrainian army.

The Kuibyshevsky neighborhood in the city center witnessed on Monday night bombing, which led to the death of a civilian and material damage.