Kremlin rebuffs Zelensky’s call for meeting with Trump, Putin

AFP | Kyiv

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The Kremlin yesterday rebuffed a call by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a three-way summit with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as Kyiv seeks to force Moscow to halt its more than three-year-long invasion.

Moscow said any meeting involving Russian President Putin and Zelensky would only happen after “concrete agreements” had been struck between negotiators from each side.

Putin rejected calls to meet Zelensky in Turkey earlier this month, when Russia and Ukraine held their first direct peace talks in three years.

Putin has repeatedly said he does not see Zelensky as a legitimate leader and called for him to be toppled.

US President Trump, meanwhile, has expressed frustration at both leaders for not yet striking a deal to end the war.

The two sides have traded waves of massive aerial attacks in recent weeks, with Ukraine unleashing one of its largest-ever drone barrages on Russia overnight, according to the defence ministry in Moscow.

“If Putin is not comfortable with a bilateral meeting, or if everyone wants it to be a trilateral meeting, I don’t mind. I am ready for any format,” Zelensky said in comments to journalists on Tuesday that were published on Wednesday.

The Ukrainian leader said he was “ready” for a “Trump-Putinme” meeting.

Asked about Zelensky’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Such a meeting should be the result of concrete agreements between the two (Ukrainian and Russian) delegations.”

The talks in Istanbul earlier this month failed to yield a breakthrough.