Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky should take place once the two sides are closer to agreeing on key issues.
Speaking to Serbian media, Lavrov added that any meeting between Putin and Zelensky to exchange views on the conflict now would be counterproductive.
Zelensky, in an interview with independent Russian journalists, said that Ukraine is ready to negotiate its neutrality and non-nuclear status. “As I recall, that was why Russia started the attack,” Zelensky said. According to him, any decision by the negotiating table will be submitted to a popular referendum.
Earlier, the Ukrainian had said he would refuse to negotiate as long as Russia demanded the “denazification” of Ukraine. “We are not going to sit at the table if all we are talking about is some ‘demilitarization’ or some ‘denazification’. To me, these are absolutely incomprehensible things,” he said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has been participating in the negotiations and talking to the representatives of the two countries. In his last conversation with Putin, Erdogan highlighted the need for a ceasefire. The Turk declared that he sees consensus on four of the six points considered vital in the negotiation.
Erdogan also confirmed that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations will meet next Tuesday (29) in Istanbul.
On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron reacted to accusations and adjectives made by his American counterpart, Joe Biden, against the Russian president. “I wouldn’t use terms, because I’m still talking to President Putin,” the Frenchman said during an interview with France 3 channel. “Our objective is to stop the war that Russia launched in Ukraine, avoiding a war and an escalation”, he added.
After visiting refugees in Poland on Saturday, Biden called the Russian president a “butcher” after calling him “a murderous dictator and a complete thug.”
Russia sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine on February 24 in what it called a special operation to degrade the military capabilities of its southern neighbor and eradicate people it called dangerous nationalists and Nazis.
Ukrainian forces mounted strong resistance and the West imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.
*with information from Reuters
Source: CNN Brasil
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