The Kremlin is currently ruling out a meeting between Putin and Zelensky / Ukraine's leader just spoke to Trump on the phone again
Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin Photo: YURI KOCHETKOV / AFP / Profimedia
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a meeting between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, does not currently make sense, according to EFE. Instead, the Ukrainian leader had a new discussion with US President Donald Trump by phone on Wednesday. according to information from Axios.
“Regarding the possibility of organizing a meeting between the Russian president and Zelensky, well, for the moment, let's limit ourselves to remembering his recent statements. (…) And let's ask ourselves the question: does it make sense to organize a summit if the regime in Kiev continues to maintain this position?”, said the spokesman of the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, on public television, according to Agerpres.
This week, Volodymyr Zelensky called for increased economic and military pressure on Russia, saying it was the only way to get it to withdraw from Ukraine. Otherwise, he argued, Putin will want to “continue” the war beyond Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine's president said he hopes for a position from the US in the next trilateral talks on the invitation to Putin to meet and directly discuss ways to end the war.
Zelenskiy said the main point of disagreement in the talks to end the conflict concerns territorial issues. According to the Ukrainian president, it is also about the division of the Donetsk region, where the “fortress belt” in the west of the region is under Ukrainian control, as well as about who will retain control of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, a plant currently under Russian control.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin said in turn that the “territorial issue” is the most complicated issue in the peace negotiations. Talks are expected to resume early next month.
“The territorial issue is the most complex and, of course, any serious meeting must be preceded by thorough work at the level of experts,” Peskov said, commenting on the possibility of bilateral or trilateral summits with the US.
Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine's territory, including the Crimean Peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014.
