Are the hopes for a peace summit between Putin and Zelensky are fading?
Chances of a summit between Russia and Ukraine receded on Friday as US President Donald Trump announced he would make a major decision within two weeks, potentially including sanctions on Russia, amid faltering US mediation efforts.
After US President Donald Trump announced earlier this week that Putin and Zelensky, who had recently met separately, had agreed to a proposed summit, he again compared the two leaders on Friday to “oil and water,” asserting that bringing them together for a joint meeting would be extremely difficult.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there were no plans for a meeting between the two presidents, while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv to discuss issues, most notably potential security guarantees for Ukraine.
Trump told reporters in Washington that the two leaders “don’t get along very well for obvious reasons”.
He added that he would make a major decision within two weeks regarding peace efforts in Ukraine, indicating that Moscow could face massive sanctions or that he might simply do nothing.
“It takes two to tango,” the US president said in the Oval Office, wearing a red baseball cap that read, “Trump was right about everything”.
“In two weeks, we’ll know which way I’m going… It’s going to be a very important decision, and it’s either massive sanctions or tariffs or both, or we’re going to do nothing and say, ‘It’s your fight,” he continued.
Lavrov also dampened hopes for direct talks between Putin and Zelensky to resolve the conflict, which has entered its fourth year, by questioning the Ukrainian president’s legitimacy and repeating the Kremlin’s tough demands.
In an interview broadcast on NBC, the Russian foreign minister said that Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky” once the agenda for their summit is prepared, adding that Zelensky is not ready at all.
In Kyiv, Zelensky, speaking alongside Rutte, said that Ukraine “has no agreements with the Russians,” noting that his country had only agreed with Trump on how to proceed with diplomatic efforts.
The Ukrainian president accused Russia on Thursday of trying to evade holding a meeting, adding that Moscow wanted to continue the attack.
The issue of potential security guarantees for Ukraine has topped US-led diplomatic efforts to broker a peace agreement to end the war.
Trump said earlier that Russia had agreed to some Western security guarantees for Kyiv.
However, Moscow later expressed doubts about any such arrangement, with Lavrov saying on Wednesday that discussing such arrangements without Russia was “a fantasy, a path to the unknown”.
“When Russia raises the issue of security guarantees, I honestly don’t know who is threatening it yet,” said Zelensky, who wants foreign troops in Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks.
The Kremlin has long asserted that it will never accept this, citing Ukraine’s NATO membership ambitions as one of the pretexts for attacking it.
“There are many principles that Washington believes should be accepted, including not joining NATO and discussing territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything,” Lavrov told NBC.
During his visit to Kyiv, where air raid sirens sounded across the capital, Rutte said security guarantees were needed to ensure that Russia adheres to any agreement and no longer attempts to seize a single square kilometer of Ukrainian territory.
