Kremlin rebuffs Zelensky's call for meeting with Trump, Putin
KYIV: The Kremlin on Wednesday 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 attack. 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 Turkiye 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-Putin-me" 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. Moscow has rejected coordinated Western calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Zelensky also urged the United States to deliver a package of hard-hitting sanctions on Russia's banking and energy sectors. "Trump confirmed that if Russia does not stop, sanctions will be imposed. We discussed two main aspects with him — energy and the banking system. Will the US be able to impose sanctions on these two sectors? I would very much like that," Zelensky said.
Trump called said Putin was "playing with fire" in rare rebukes of the Russian leader after Moscow's latest wave of aerial attacks. The US president has repeatedly threatened to impose fresh sanctions on Russia, but has yet to do so. Despite months of US-led diplomacy, the two sides appear no closer to striking a deal to end the war, triggered by Russia's February 2022 attack.
Tens of thousands have been killed, much of eastern and southern Ukraine has been destroyed, and Moscow's army now controls around a fifth of Ukraine's territory, including the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Ukraine overnight fired almost 300 drones at Russia, where officials reported only minimal damage from the attacks and some air travel disruption. The Ukrainian military said the attack hit several sites involved in missile and drone production.
Zelensky on Wednesday also accused Russia of dragging out the peace process and of not wanting to halt its attack. "They will constantly look for reasons not to end the war," he said at a press conference in Berlin alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, criticising Russia for not having agreed to a location for the next round of negotiations.
Kyiv is yet to receive a promised "memorandum" from Russia on its demands for a peace deal that Putin said he would send to Ukraine. Work on the document was in its "final stages", Peskov said. Zelensky also urged allies to invite Kyiv to a Nato summit in June, warning that otherwise it would be a victory for Russia. Merz said Germany will help Ukraine develop new long-range weapons that can hit targets in Russian territory. Neither leader provided specific details. The Kremlin said Germany's support to Kyiv would "hinder peace efforts".
On the battlefield, Zelensky said Russia was "amassing" more than 50,000 troops on the front line around the northeastern Sumy border region, where Moscow's army has captured a number of settlements as it seeks to establish what Putin has called a "buffer zone" inside Ukrainian territory. Russia's army said on Wednesday it had captured another village in the Sumy region. — AFP
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