Live: Zelensky reportedly seeking 'direct talks' with China to help end Ukraine war

Ukraine is seeking an opportunity to speak “directly” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help end its war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursd...
France 24
2022-08-04T04:38:37Z
France has welcomed 100,000 Ukrainian refugees since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began more than five months ago, Didier Leschi, director general of the French Office for Immigration and Integrain, said Thursday. The news came amid reports that President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking an opportunity to speak “directly” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help end the war. Follow FRANCE 24's liveblog for the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was "disgusting" for former European leaders to work for Russia, in an apparent reference to former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's comments that Moscow wanted a "negotiated solution" to the war.
The war-torn country's leader spoke out in his daily address on Wednesday, after the publication of an interview in German media in which Schroeder called for negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin: "The good news is that the Kremlin wants a negotiated settlement," the 78-year-old, the immediate predecessor of Angela Merkel, was quoted as saying after he confirmed meeting Putin in Moscow last week. Schroeder has also called on Berlin to reconsider its position on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
"It is simply disgusting when former leaders of powerful states with European values work for Russia, which is fighting against these values," Zelensky said in the video address, without referring to Schroeder directly.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to huge public pressure in Germany for Schroeder to turn his back on Putin and to sever his ties with Russia's energy giants. Schroeder was chairman of the board of directors of Russian oil giant Rosneft.
Russian shelling of a bus stop Thursday in the frontline east Ukraine town of Toretsk killed eight people and left four wounded, the regional governor said. "According to preliminary information, there was artillery fire. They hit a public transport stop, where there was a crowd of people at that time," Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Ukraine-run Donetsk region administration, wrote on telegram.
France has welcomed 100,000 Ukrainian refugees since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began more than five months ago, Didier Leschi, director general of the French Office for Immigration and Integrain (Ofii), told AFP on Thursday.
"Since Wednesday evening, the 100,000 threshold" of people displaced by the conflict in Ukraine "has been passed", said Leschi, confirming information published in French daily Le Figaro.
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The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog appealed for access to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, now controlled by Russian forces to determine whether it was a source of danger.
Contact with the Europe's largest nuclear plant, which is at Zaporizhzhia and is being operated by Ukrainian technicians, was "fragile" and communications did not function every day, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi told Swiss paper Tages-Anzeiger.
"We can't afford faulty communication with the plant in areas relevant to safety. We know of allegations that live ammunition is stored in the plant, that there are attacks on the power plant," he said in interview published in German. "Frankly, if I don't have access, I can't determine that. There are contradictions between the accounts of the Russian and Ukrainian sides. I receive information, I also mention it in my situation reports, but I have no way of determining whether it corresponds to the facts."
A Russian-installed official in Ukraine said on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces had repeatedly used Western arms to attack the plant, which has two of six reactors operating and has been the subject of repeated warnings from Ukraine, the West and Russia.
Ukrainian authorities in the East said that sever