Russian President Vladimir Putin will only be able to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with the aim of finalizing war agreements, Russian news agencies cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Wednesday.
“The main thing is the purpose of this meeting. Why should they meet? Putin said he is ready for a meeting in Moscow at any time,” Peskov told Russian state television, according to the TASS news agency.
“The main thing is that there must be a reason for the meeting, and the main thing is that the meeting must be productive. And it can only be for the purpose of finalizing agreements.”
During a visit to Istanbul at the beginning of the month, Zelensky said he was .
On the same occasion, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would continue to support negotiations between the countries to end the war.
Ukraine can’t wait
Zelensky told CNN on Wednesday (22) that the war in Iran diverted focus from Russia’s aggression against his country, saying it would be a “great risk” to think that efforts to end the fighting in Ukraine could not be resumed until the conflict in Iran ended.
In an interview with journalist Christiane Amanpour, from CNNin the presidential office in Kiev, Zelensky said this Wednesday (22) that, although technical talks with the United States are still ongoing, he does not see “an opportunity for a meeting… until the issue, the case of Iran, is closed.”
Zelensky stressed that it was a “challenge” that the same team of American negotiators – led by US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – was leading both the Iran war talks and the Ukraine war talks.
And he said that while he understands that the United States is currently focused on the war against Iran, it is important not to forget Ukraine, where fighting continues.
The Ukrainian leader stated that it was not an option to say that “we will talk about Ukraine a little later… Ukraine is not ‘a little later.’ Ukraine is already in the midst of such a huge tragedy that we need to find a way to deal with it in parallel.”
Zelesky also told CNN that the war has disrupted the supply of essential weapons to Ukraine, especially anti-ballistic missiles, of which he says the country is not receiving enough due to limited production capacity in the US.
