Russia’s top diplomat said Friday the Kremlin is “not ready at all” for a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pouring cold water on U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to set up a summit.
Trump announced Monday on social media that he was arranging a bilateral meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, following crunch talks with European leaders at the White House — but gave scant details.
But Moscow has since been reluctant to commit to a confab between the two leaders, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying Tuesday such a meeting would need to be prepared “step by step, gradually, starting from the expert level and then going through all the necessary stages.”
He sowed further doubt Friday, claiming that Zelenskyy was the one not willing to negotiate by refusing to rule out joining NATO or concede to the Kremlin’s maximalist territorial demands.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov told U.S. channel NBC.
“Zelenskyy said no to everything. … How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?” he added.
While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week the Russian ruler had agreed to a face-to-face meeting, touting his supposed openness to talks as a breakthrough, European diplomats and leaders have voiced skepticism that Moscow is really interested in ending the war and willing to negotiate in good faith.
“We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession, and they are the ones who are the aggressor here,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday.
Zelenskyy accused Moscow on Friday of dragging out peace talks in a bid to hold off punishing American sanctions, which Trump has threatened to impose on Russia and its trading partners if the Kremlin does not participate.
“We believe that everything must be done so that Russia cannot continue to hide from the meeting,” the Ukrainian leader said at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Kyiv. “They are doing everything so that President Trump does not impose sanctions on them.”
French President Emmanuel Macron voiced the same view on Monday, before the White House meeting. “Do I think that President Putin wants peace? The answer is no. If you want my deepest belief: No,” he said.
Five EU diplomats, granted anonymity to shed light on the sensitive calls, told POLITICO they largely aligned with Macron. Meanwhile, Russian missiles and drones continue to rain down on Ukrainian cities, killing civilians and pummeling infrastructure.
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