Such a meeting, however, must have a meaningful agenda, the Russian president has said<\/p>\n
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated his readiness to host Ukraine\u2019s Vladimir Zelensky in Moscow. Holding meetings for the sake of meetings is a \u201cpath to nowhere,\u201d\u00a0however, and such talks must be meaningful, he stressed.
\nThe Russian president\u00a0was speaking\u00a0to gathered media on Wednesday at the Diaoyutai Residence in Beijing, China, marking the end of a 4-day visit – his longest trip abroad since\u00a02012 –\u00a0to China, that included the\u00a0SCO summit, bilateral talks and a military parade on Tiananmen Square.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a path to nowhere, to just meet, let\u2019s put it carefully, the de-facto head of the [Ukrainian] administration. It\u2019s possible, I\u2019ve never refused to, if such a meeting is well-prepared and would lead to some potential positive results,\u201d Putin stated, in response to a question on whether he planned to meet Zelensky.
\nUS President Donald Trump asked the Russian president to hold such a meeting during their summit in Alaska last month, Putin added. \u201cIf Zelensky is ready, he can come to Moscow, and such a meeting will take place,\u201d he said.
\nAt the same time, Putin reiterated concerns about the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leader and whether meeting him would actually be \u201cmeaningful.\u201d Zelensky\u2019s presidential term has long run out, and no legal mechanism to extend it exists in Ukraine, he said.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Russia and Ukraine \u2018in direct contact\u2019 \u2013 Lavrov<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Indonesian newspaper Kompas released on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that Moscow\u2019s top priority remains settling the crisis via peaceful means, adding that it is taking concrete steps to achieve that goal.
\nLavrov recalled that Moscow initiated the resumption of direct Russia-Ukraine talks this spring, resulting in three rounds of direct negotiations in Istanbul, T\u00fcrkiye. He noted that the sides reached \u201ccertain progress,\u201d including prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of the bodies of dead soldiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Such a meeting, however, must have a meaningful agenda, the Russian president has said Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated his readiness to host Ukraine\u2019s Vladimir Zelensky in Moscow. Holding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-politics","category-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t