Russia conditions the meeting between Putin and Zelensky to a written agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine

The Kremlin said today that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has never refused to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelensky, but insisted that there will only be a meeting to end the military offensive once the agreement is ready in writing on which the two delegations are working.

“ Putin has never refused such a meeting and a meeting is hypothetically possible, but for it to take place there needs to be a specific and mature document prepared by the two delegations”, said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov.

 

“We are not (talking about) a series of ideas, but a specific written document. Then that meeting will come, “he stressed on the program” Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” on the state television channel Rossiya

Peskov pointed out that Russia still remembers the failure of the implementation by Ukraine for seven years of the Minsk Peace Agreements for Donbas, one of the arguments put forward by the Kremlin to launch the so-called “special military operation” to avoid a ” genocide” in pro-Russian eastern Ukraine and free him.

“I hope that as a result of the vigorous effort being made in the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, we will be able to sign a document and that will be an important step towards normalizing the situation,” Putin’s spokesman said.

Also the Russian chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinski, today reduced expectations of a soon agreement, after his Ukrainian counterpart David Arkhamia affirmed the day before that the negotiations are sufficiently advanced for a face-to-face meeting to be held soon between the leaders of both countries.

 

“Regarding the preparations for the drafting of the agreement for a summit, unfortunately I do not share the optimism of Arakhamia. We still have a lot of work ahead of us”, he stated on his Telegram account.

Medinski also announced that both delegations will continue working this Monday by videoconference