🔴 Live: Zelensky set to meet Turkey’s Erdogan as Ukraine pushes NATO goals

4:26 am: Zelensky traveling to Istanbul to meet Erdogan

President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to hold talks with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday on the latest leg of a tour to push Ukraine’s bid to join NATO and secure more weapons from allies.

The talks in Istanbul come on the eve of the 500th day since Russian’s invasion, with Zelensky admitting a widely anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive was progressing slowly.

“But nevertheless, we are advancing, not retreating, like Russians,” Zelensky told reporters. “We now have the initiative.”

The talks with Erdogan – an important broker in the conflict – are due to focus on an expiring deal to ship Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea as well as next week’s NATO summit.

Analysts expect Zelensky to push Erdogan to give a green light for Sweden’s NATO membership ahead of the July 11-12 meet in Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

 

Key developments from Thursday 6 July:

A Russian strike on the city of Lviv in the early morning hours of Thursday has left several people dead. Zelensky has vowed a “tangible response”.

The President of Belarus says the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is now back in Russia. The man who led a short-lived mutiny against Russia had arrived in Belarus on 27 June as part of a deal brokered by Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to both Bulgaria and the Czech Republic on Thursday, meeting with leaders in the two countries.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)