Zelenskyy accuses Moscow of blocking peace talks as Russia avoids meeting
Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to be avoiding a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has hinted that no bilateral talks will take place in the near future. Ukraine’s president has stated that Russia is doing everything to avoid ending the war.
In Kyiv, Mr Zelenskyy met with Mark Rutte, where the Nato secretary general outlined some general guidelines for security guarantees but also stated clearly what they should not look like. Speaking to Russian state media, Mr Lavrov said there was no agenda for a Putin-Zelenskyy summit.
Moscow claims Donald Trump laid out several principles for a peace deal in Alaska, including no Nato membership for Ukraine. Mr Zelenskyy allegedly rejected all of them.
"Let's set the date and location. That's it. The Russians are now doing everything to avoid the meeting. And the problem isn't just the meeting, but the fact that they don't want to stop the war. The meeting is just one component of how we can end the war," stated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
After the Alaska summit, European leaders, along with Mr Zelenskyy and Mr Trump, agreed on security guarantees in Washington. The head of Nato says it's a phased process: a ceasefire, arming Ukraine, and then the actual European and American guarantees.
"We know well that the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk Agreements did not provide security guarantees. We are clear about what they should not look like. And now we are working together—Ukraine, the Europeans, and the United States—so that the security guarantees are so solid that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, sitting in Moscow, will not even think of attacking Ukraine again," emphasised the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte.
The 1994 Budapest Memorandum was a political assurance from Russia and the US. It was meant to respect Ukraine's borders in exchange for its giving up its Soviet nuclear arsenal. The Minsk Agreements put a ceasefire in Donbas on paper, but Moscow did not respect the deal.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
