Zelenski announces new meetings with the US about a possible summit with Putin: “I understand from the American side if the Russians are prepared”

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski announced new discussions with US President Donald Trump on Monday, Keith Kellogg, after which a meeting between Ukrainian and American delegates will take place at the end of the week to evaluate possible peace negotiations with Russia.

The objective is to “make preparations on the possibility of a future meeting with the Russian side,” Zelenski told Kiev, at a common press conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Agerpres reports EFE and DPA news agencies.

This week, Ukraine will receive from its Western allies “a basic plan on security guarantees” that will be offered in the case of a peace agreement with Russia, although establishing details on these guarantees “requires more time,” Zelenski said.

“After that, I would like to understand from the American side if the Russians are prepared (for a meeting) and in what format. That is, if the Russians are prepared for the format that was proposed in the US and was supported by Ukraine in the presence of European leaders: a bilateral meeting and then a trilateral one,” he added.

After the summit that US President Donald Trump on August 15 with Putin in Alaska, concluded according to some progress to the negotiated resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian war, although there were no concrete results, the White House leader's intention was to be organized a Trilateral Trump-Putin-Zenski summit.

Trump then had at the White House a meeting with Zelenski and a group of European leaders supporters of Ukraine, a meeting that he at one point interrupted to discuss on the phone with Putin, and at the end he announced that he was working on organizing a Putin-Zenski bilateral meeting and only after that would take place.

What conditions does Russia put

But the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that there is still no plan for a potential summit between Putin and Zelenski, as the Ukrainian president refused all compromise proposals that would allow progress in peace negotiations. On his side, Zelenski accuses Russia of doing everything so that such a summit cannot be carried out and asks its Western allies to impose new sanctions against Russia.

Putin would have asked the summit with Trump for Ukraine to completely withdraw from the Donbas region (made up of Donetk and Lagansk provinces) and instead of freezing the rest of the front line, but would have become more flexible than the idea of ​​security guarantees offered by Ukraine by Western states, including the US, but without sending NATO.

But Zelenski rejects any transfer of territories to Russia, and Ukraine's European supporters insist on sending troops to this country as a security guarantee, although Russia repeats that such a deployment is unacceptable.

From the point of view of Moscow, explained the Russian Foreign Minister, an arrangement for security guarantees offered to Ukraine should involve permanent member states in the UN Security Council, respectively, Russia, China, Great Britain and France, possibly other countries, such as Germany or Turkey, but in no case exclusively from NATO members or supporters.

Donald Trump said on Friday that in about two weeks he should know if possible progress in his attempt to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, given that he notices “a huge hatred” between Putin and Zelenski. Trump has promised that he will decide in these two weeks if he imposes “massive sanctions” Russia or if he will simply abandon his mediation attempts between Russia and Ukraine and tell them that “it is your struggle.”

During this time, Ukraine's European supporters still provide all the support if they continue the war and prepare new sanctions against Russia.