Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has harshly criticized Vladimir Putin for rejecting his request for a face-to-face meeting to discuss ending the four-year war.
"Unfortunately, the Russian side is choosing war again: everyone has heard today's response. A weak response. They simply don't want to end the war," Zelensky commented after Putin said he saw "no reason" to meet with the Ukrainian leader.
Zelensky's open letter, therefore, won't bring the conflict any closer. The Russian president responded with irritation to the Ukrainian president's decision to "bring the contacts between the two enemies into the public sphere."
Such a meeting, requested in Zelensky's letter, will only be possible once a solution to halt the conflict has been reached through the work of the respective delegations, the Kremlin chief stated, reiterating a position he has already expressed several times.
Putin, speaking from the stage at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), also said that Russia's objectives in what he calls the "special military operation" remain "unchanged. " He recalled that he himself had outlined them in a speech to the Foreign Ministry in June 2024: the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from regions claimed by Russia and Kiev's refusal to join NATO.
The initiative launched by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to seek a negotiated solution with Moscow, in agreement with Zelensky, thus appears to be off to a rocky start. Bloomberg first reported this move, and it appears to be confirmed by a meeting announced for Sunday in London between the leaders of the E3 countries: Britain's Keir Starmer, Germany's Friedrich Merz, and France's Emmanuel Macron. Macron stated that "it's time to look to the future" and "reorganize a dialogue to build a ceasefire and peace."
(Unioneonline)