Putin-Zelensky meeting hinges on reaching certain agreements, Kremlin says

The Kremlin said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but only if certain agreements were reached.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not specify what agreements would be required from Russia’s point of view.

President Zelenskiy had challenged the Kremlin leader to meet him in Turkey this week, but Putin instead sent a team of aides and officials to meet Ukrainian negotiators on Friday for the first bilateral, face-to-face talks since March 2022.

Ukraine said it had raised the issue of a Putin-Zelenskiy meeting at the talks.

Peskov said Russia considered such a meeting was possible, but only as a result of work between the two sides to “achieve certain results in the form of agreements”.

“At the same time, when signing documents that the delegations are to agree upon, the main and fundamental thing for us remains who exactly will sign these documents from the Ukrainian side,” he added.

Peskov did not elaborate on that remark. Putin has previously challenged Zelenskiy’s legitimacy as president because his elected term of office expired last year.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped to obtain a definitive result from peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, adding that Turkey is determined to continue its mediation role between its Black Sea neighbours, according to a transcript of remarks he made to journalists on his return flight from Albania overnight.