Russian FM says Putin-Zelensky meeting would be ‘counterproductive’

MOSCOW — Direct talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky would be “counterproductive,” the Russian foreign minister says, as delegations prepare for Turkey-hosted talks on Moscow’s military operation.

Putin “has said he has never refused to meet President Zelensky. The only thing that he considers fundamentally important is for these meetings to be well prepared,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says today in televised comments to journalists, after Zelensky called for a meeting with his Russian counterpart.

Lavrov says the current crisis has “been brewing so long, all these years, that a huge number of problems have built up, therefore just meeting and exchanging views on what you think and I think, that would just be counterproductive now.”

Zelensky and Putin have met only once, at talks in Paris in 2019.

As the countries are set to resume in-person peace talks in Istanbul, Lavrov says Moscow maintains its demands for demilitarization and “denazification” in Ukraine.

Putin has named these as Moscow’s military goals, as well as for Ukraine to have neutral status.

“Both the demilitarization and the denazification of Ukraine are an essential component of the agreements that we are trying to achieve,” Lavrov says.

“We have an interest in these talks ending with a result that will achieve the fundamental aims for us,” the minister says.