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Putin and Zelenskyy unlikely to meet: Trump
NEW DELHI [Maha Media]: The much-talked-about meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin is unlikely to happen as a top Russian diplomat made it clear on Friday that Putin won't meet with Zelenskyy until the Ukrainians agree to some of Moscow's longstanding demands to end the conflict.
It's a stinging setback for US President Donald Trump, who on Friday said setting up a meeting between the two is as hard as mixing "oil and vinegar." "We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskyy will be working together. You know, it's like oil and vinegar, a little bit. They don't get along too well, for obvious reasons," he told reporters in Washington. Trump added, "we'll see" if he would need to attend any such meeting.
Trump started the week declaring a diplomatic breakthrough in his bid to prod Moscow and Kyiv closer to peace, announcing he had begun arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. Four days later, the Republican president's optimism has diminished.
Trump said Friday he expected to make a decision on his next actions in two weeks if direct talks aren’t scheduled. He raised the possibility of imposing new sanctions or tariffs on Russia, a threat he has previously floated but not followed through on.
“We’re going to see whether or not they have a meeting,” Trump told reporters in an Oval Office appearance. “It’ll be interesting to see. If they don’t, why didn’t they have a meeting, because I told them to have a meeting. But I’ll know what I am going to do in two weeks.”
Trump announced Monday that he had begun making the arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting soon after concluding White House talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders as well as speaking by phone with Putin. European leaders cheered the president's tone at the White House meeting, when he made vague promises to back European security guarantees for postwar Ukraine.
Trump also appeared to ease European anxiety heightened by his comments after his Alaska summit with Putin days earlier, when he appeared to tilt toward the Russian leader's demand for Ukraine to give up land seized by Russia. The European leaders even offered guarded optimism that Trump was making headway after he announced his plans for direct talks, followed potentially by three-way negotiations involving him.
But uncertainty has grown in recent days about Putin's commitment to Trump's peace-making efforts as Russian officials raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals on the negotiating table.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss peace terms but only after key issues first are worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart.
“There is no meeting planned,” Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBC’s Sunday show “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.” “Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all.”
