Zelenskyy: Trump told me Putin wants to end the war. I told him Putin is a liar.

After Trump and Russian leader Putin sidelined Ukraine, announcing the start of peace talks before presenting the plan to Kyiv, Zelenskyy is bidding to win back a leading role at the negotiating table.

“Trump is stronger than Putin, I think so. But these phone calls with Putin are risky to us,” Zelenskyy said.

In 2019 Zelenskyy held direct talks with Putin about a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, as the Kremlin's long-running war raged in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. While Putin indeed agreed to release 100 Ukrainian prisoners from Russia, his troops violated the cease-fire right away.

“He will not stick to cease-fire and that’s all. That is why I told the president [Trump] that I think phone calls are phone calls. But don’t make any decisions on Ukraine without Ukraine. And it is not about me, it is about the entire country. If we agree on a pause it will help Putin. And I don’t want to go [down] in history as [the] president who helped Putin to occupy my country,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy is still waiting to be invited to Washington for talks with Trump, though he said he's ready for that at any point. Ukraine's president also said there's a lot of work ahead as no treaties can be signed in Munich.

"A peace treaty cannot be signed in Munich, because this is Munich and we remember what things were signed here in the past," Zelenskyy added at the panel on Friday, referring to the 1938 Munich agreement that led to Nazi Germany occupying the Sudetenland.