KYIV — President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the war with Russia ends next year through diplomacy, commenting at a decisive moment after Donald Trump's US presidential election win and Russia's grinding battlefield gains.

However, Zelenskiy said Russian President Vladimir Putin was not interested in agreeing to a peace deal, and argued it was convenient for Moscow to sit down to talk while continuing to fight.

"From our side, we must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means," Zelenskiy said in a Ukrainian radio interview aired on Saturday (Nov 16).

Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said on Thursday that Russia would be open to negotiations to end the war if initiated by Trump, although he added that they would have to acknowledge "realities on the ground".

Moscow uses this phrase to mean Ukraine would have to cede four regions that Russian forces have partly occupied and that Russia has claimed in their entirety.

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