Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there weren’t any plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In an interview on Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, Lavrov said there are no plans for a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, one of President Donald Trump’s key goals from his Alaska summit with the Russian president. Lavrov did not rule one out but said an agenda had to be set first.
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“President Putin said clearly that he is ready to meet, provided this meeting is really going to have an agenda, presidential agenda,” Lavrov said, at which point he was cut off by Welker, who said the condition of an agenda was a big “if.”
“There is no meeting planned,” he responded. “And I’m not challenging this, but you cannot, I think, understand what I am saying. Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all.”
Lavrov then argued that Russia was acting in line with the conditions agreed upon in Alaska but that Zelensky threw a wrench in efforts during his own visit to Washington alongside his European allies.
“When President Trump brought those, those issues to the meeting in Washington with Zelensky present together with his European sponsors … it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything,” Lavrov said.
“He even said no to, as I said, to canceling legislation prohibiting the Russian language,” he concluded. “How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?”
Lavrov elaborated on Moscow’s concerns with a meeting between Putin and Zelensky in a Tuesday interview with VGTRK, warning that such meetings should not be turned into a media circus.
He argued that it was important that high-level meetings “are not exploited for media coverage, in morning newspapers or in evening news, or on social media, to skim the propaganda cream off the top.”
“These formats are designed for step-by-step, consistent preparations for summits, from the expert level and up,” Lavrov said. “We will always support this sort of serious approach. Any contacts involving top officials must be prepared extremely carefully.”
After a bloom of hope that the war could swiftly conclude following the Alaska summit last week, the situation is now as uncertain as ever following Zelensky’s visit to Washington. Kyiv and Moscow are unclear on what conditions are needed for a personal meeting between Zelensky and Putin and how such a meeting would come about, though Trump expressed confidence that such a meeting would take place after the Oval Office meeting on Monday.
“At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump said Monday on Truth Social. “After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.”
Monday’s Oval Office meeting does not appear to have outwardly addressed the key sticking points of Putin’s latest peace deal, especially Ukraine ceding the Donbas and currently occupied territory in Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts.
Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out any ceding of territory, and his European allies have repeatedly stressed that Russia cannot be allowed to take any territory by force.
Russia also insists that Ukraine’s military must be downsized postwar, another nonstarter for Kyiv. Domestic demands to make Russian a second official language of Ukraine and the protection of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are viewed as impeding on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
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Ukraine also insists on a ceasefire before a peace deal, while Russia views a ceasefire as simply a measure to allow Kyiv’s forces to regroup.
Trump’s messaging after Monday has added to confusion, suggesting in a cryptic Thursday Truth Social post that it was unfair that President Joe Biden had prevented the offensive use of U.S. weapons against Russian forces within Russia, then bashing Kyiv in a letter to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for attacking an oil pipeline supplying Hungary with energy.