Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of blocking a US-led push to end their war, as Nato said western powers were working to draw up security guarantees strong enough to ensure that Russia would “never, ever try to attack Ukraine again”.
A week after US president Donald Trump met Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for an Alaska summit that the White House touted as a likely prelude to war-ending talks that would also involve Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, there was still no sign on Friday of any follow-up meeting or diplomatic breakthrough.
“The question of ending the war must be resolved at the leadership level, but we can see now that the Russians are doing everything to prevent a meeting. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not afraid of any meetings with leaders. We are ready to work productively, to the maximum,” Mr Zelenskiy said in Kyiv alongside visiting Nato secretary general Mark Rutte.
“They must be forced into diplomacy – truly strong sanctions are needed if they do not agree to a diplomatic resolution of this war,” he added.
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Mr Putin’s administration says a meeting with Mr Zelenskiy should be the culmination of a negotiation process conducted by their subordinates, so that all core issues are resolved before the leaders sit down together.
The warring neighbours remain diametrically opposed on key points, however: Moscow demands permanent control of five regions of Ukraine, a ban on the country ever joining Nato and no deployment of foreign troops on its soil. Kyiv rejects those terms and says western security guarantees – preferably including a peacekeeping or “reassurance” force – are a prerequisite for any peace talks.
“President Putin said clearly that he is ready to meet, provided this meeting is really going to have an agenda, a presidential agenda,” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told US television.
He complained that Mr Putin and Mr Trump had established “several points which we share” at their Alaska summit, only for Mr Zelenskiy to reject them all when he met Mr Trump along with several European leaders at the White House on Monday.
“When President Trump brought ... those issues to the meeting in Washington, it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no Nato membership [for Ukraine], including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelenskiy said no to everything,” Mr Lavrov said.
Mr Trump claimed when campaigning for re-election that he could end Europe’s biggest war since 1945 in just one day, and said just last week that he was eager to sit down with Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskiy to thrash out a deal.
On Friday, however, he said he would “rather not” join them for a meeting.
“We’re going to see if Putin and Zelenskiy 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 said. “But we’ll see. And then we’ll see whether or not I would have to be there. I’d rather not.”
Mr Trump said this week that the US supported the idea of postwar security guarantees for Ukraine, and was open to providing help with “co-ordination” and possibly air support but would not put troops on the ground.
“Robust security guarantees will be essential – and this is what we are now working to define,” Mr Rutte told Mr Zelenskiy in Kyiv.
“So that when the time comes for you to enter that bilateral meeting – you have the unmistakable force of Ukraine’s friends behind you. Ensuring that Russia will uphold any deal. And will never, ever again attempt to take one square kilometre of Ukraine.”
