Ukrainian Presidential Candidate Ready for Dialogue with Putin, Trump

Ukrainian presidential candidate Vladimir Zelensky. Photo: TASS.

The leader of the Servant of the People party of Ukraine - Mr. Vladimir Zelensky is ready to hold a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump if elected President. That is the information that Alexander Danilyuk - spokesman for Mr. Zelensky's election campaign team told the Ukrainian channel ICTV.

“He is definitely ready,” the spokesman replied when asked. “I would like to address those who think that Vladimir Zelensky is not competent: Try to look at his team and assess its competence, then there will be no more questions,” Danilyuk added.
“No one is ready to hold such difficult negotiations without preparation. If we are talking about dialogue to resolve the situation in eastern Ukraine, it is necessary to thoroughly study any possible initiatives within the framework of the Minsk process,” the spokesman said.

The first round of Ukraine's presidential election was held on March 31. With 95% of votes counted across the country, Zelensky was the leading candidate with 30.22% of the vote, followed by incumbent President Petro Poroshenko with 15.94%. The leader of the Batkivshchina (Motherland) party, Yulia Timoshenko, came in third with 13.39% of the vote.

Earlier, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine officially announced that no candidate was likely to win 50% of the votes and the second round of elections will take place on April 21. Therefore, based on preliminary data, Zelensky and Poroshenko will participate in the next round of voting./.