Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that there is no agenda for a potential meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy despite US President Donald Trump’s earlier suggestion that such talks were imminent.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskiy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all. There is no meeting planned,” Lavrov said in an interview with NBC News on Friday. Russia’s top diplomat said Putin has made it clear that he was ready to meet Zelenskiy, provided that there is an agenda for such summit.
Lavrov accused Zelenskiy of not showing flexibility to Russia’s conditions. “Trump clearly indicated – it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership for Ukraine, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelenskyy said no to everything,” Lavrov, with reference to recent Putin-Trump summit held in Alaska on August 8. “He even said no to, as I said, to cancelling legislation banning the Russian language. How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?” Lavrov went on saying.
Trump announced after hosting Zelenskiy and EU leaders in the Oval Office last week that preparations were underway for a one-on-one meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy. The face-to-face meeting would be followed by a trilateral summit that would include Trump. However, Russia has signaled that it’s in no rush for the Putin-Zelenskiy meeting to discuss peace deal ending the war. Lavrov’s comments on Friday appeared to harden Russia’s stance.
