Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday he hoped that US-brokered talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Abu Dhabi next week would pave the way for him to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The United States and Russia earlier confirmed that the representatives of the warring countries and Washington will meet in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11.
“We are counting on the fact that work in this format and our other diplomatic steps will open the way to a trilateral format at the level of leaders,” Zelensky told reporters in Berlin.
Ukraine has repeatedly insisted that a face-to-face meeting between Zelensky and Putin was key to making progress towards peace.
The Kremlin has said that a direct meeting would only be possible in Moscow.
But the Ukrainian leader ruled out such a trip — or hosting Putin in Kyiv.
“We are not inviting Putin to Kyiv. First of all, in 2022 they came to us without an invitation. And there is no point in inviting Putin to Kyiv because they will not come,” Zelensky said, calling the idea “destructive”.
“Just like inviting me to Moscow — what Russia is doing is destructive. It’s simply spitting in the face of the entire world that wants the war to end,” Zelensky said.
He also repeated a call for a ceasefire in the four-and-a-half-year war.
The first step towards de-escalation, Zelensky said, was “a ceasefire. A ceasefire can, forgive me, even happen without meetings.”
The dates of the latest round of talks — the first since February — were announced hours after multiple Russian strikes hit an aid distribution point in the southeastern Ukrainian village of Komyshuvakha, killing at least 33 people.
“We proposed to Russia to prolong and expand the ceasefire that made it possible to evacuate people from Oleshky,” Zelensky said, referring to a southern town where a temporary truce was observed last week.
“But in response, we got this, this kind of attack. New shelling, new strikes, new killings.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had so far seen no sign that Russia was willing to engage seriously in talks aimed at ending the war.
“It is important that Russia finally and seriously engages in negotiations about a ceasefire and a subsequent peace agreement,” Merz said alongside Zelensky in Berlin, when asked about the US-brokered trilateral talks.
“I do not see that happening so far.”
