Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has declined to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to a summit in Moscow. In response, Putin remarked that he is open to coming to Kiev instead.
“He can come to Kiev. When my country faces missiles and attacks every day, I can’t go to Moscow,” Zelensky stated in an interview broadcast on ABC News. “We can’t go to this terrorist capital,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader accused Putin of trying to derail any potential meeting and asserted his willingness to meet with the Russian president in various formats.
Despite this, Putin has questioned the necessity of such a meeting, with Russian officials indicating that direct peace negotiations seem unlikely after more than three years of conflict. Notably, on Wednesday, Putin expressed that Zelensky should be the one visiting Moscow instead.
“We could. If that leads to some positive outcomes, I’ve never rejected it,” Putin mentioned regarding a potential meeting. He recalled telling former President Trump that it was indeed possible for Zelensky to come to Moscow.
In his efforts to resolve the conflict in Eastern Europe, Trump has urged both Zelensky and Putin to arrange in-person discussions. Recently, he expressed doubts about the meeting’s prospects, suggesting that “perhaps they need to fight a bit longer,” though he remained optimistic about the possibility of a trilateral meeting involving the three leaders.
“A [trilateral] meeting will happen. A [bilateral] one, I don’t know, but we’ll give it a shot. Sometimes people aren’t ready for it, as you know,” the president said in a recent interview with the Daily Caller.
German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz had previously pointed out that a meeting between Zelensky and Putin is “clearly” unlikely to occur.
During the ABC News interview, Zelensky remarked that the Russian president seems to be “playing a game” with the United States, stating, “Of course, if someone doesn’t want to meet during the war, they can propose things that are unacceptable to me or others.”
