Lavrov said there are no plans for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, despite President Trump’s push.
“Putin is ready to meet Zelensky once the agenda for the summit is prepared, but the agenda is not ready yet,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News in an interview today. “There are no plans for the meeting.”
Lavrov said Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to be “flexible” on some issues raised by his US counterpart Donald Trump at a summit in Alaska last week. He accused Ukraine of failing to show the same flexibility at a later meeting with US and European leaders in Washington.
“Trump made it very clear, and everyone saw it clearly, that there are a number of principles that Washington believes must be accepted, including Ukraine not joining NATO and the need to discuss territorial issues. But Zelensky said no to all of them,” Lavrov commented.
“Mr. Zelensky even refused to abolish the law banning the Russian language. How can we meet with someone who is just pretending to be a leader?”, the Russian foreign minister added.
Russia has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that his five-year term expires in May 2024 and the country has yet to hold elections. Kiev has repeatedly denied the accusation, insisting that the decision to postpone the election is constitutional because the country is at war and martial law is in place.
NBC News wrote that Ukraine did not ban the Russian language as reported by Mr. Lavrov. Russia has long accused Ukraine of discriminating against Russian speakers in Donbass.
President Zelensky also accused Moscow on August 22 of doing everything possible to make the Russia-Ukraine summit impossible. He called on Kiev’s allies to impose new sanctions on Moscow if Russia still does not show its intention to end the fighting.
After meeting with Mr. Zelensky and European leaders at the White House on August 18, President Trump said he had called his counterpart Putin and was arranging a Russia-Ukraine summit. However, subsequent developments showed that the prospect of peace talks was becoming increasingly fragile.
Mr. Trump on August 21 gave a two-week time frame to assess the prospects for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and warned that the US could “take a different approach.”
President Trump had set a deadline of August 8 for Russia to agree to end the fighting in Ukraine, otherwise the US would impose sanctions on Russia and countries that buy its oil. However, Mr. Trump made no move after the deadline passed and agreed to meet Mr. Putin in Alaska.