SAINT PETERSBURG, JUNE 19 (AFP/APP/DNA):Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready to meet with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky but only during a “final phase” of negotiations on ending the three-year conflict.
He also suggested Zelensky had no right to sign a peace agreement given his five-year mandate had expired under martial law, a notion Kyiv has dismissed as baseless propaganda.
“We need to find a solution that would not only put an end to the current conflict, but also create conditions that would prevent similar situations from recurring in the long term,” Putin told foreign journalists including AFP in Saint Petersburg.
“I am ready to meet with everyone, including Zelensky. That is not the issue — if the Ukrainian state trusts someone in particular to conduct negotiations, for God’s sake, it can be Zelensky,” the Russian leader said.
“We don’t care who negotiates, even if it is the current head of the regime,” Putin said.
But he added that this would only happen at a “final phase, so as not to sit there and divide things up endlessly, but to put an end to it.”
Talks on ending the three-year conflict have stalled in recent weeks, with Putin pushing maximalist demands for ending his offensive while declining to attend a personal meeting with Zelensky.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging peace efforts to prolong the conflict.
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