BERLIN
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Miami for talks on ending the war, in a media interview released Saturday, but the Kremlin immediately ruled it out.
\n\u201cIt is impossible,\u201d Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told media in New Delhi on Saturday, repeating Moscow\u2019s demand that a meeting can only take place in the Russian capital. The gathering of world leaders takes place on December 14-15 and there has been no confirmation yet as to whether Putin would attend.
\nAsked if the Kremlin was considering an alternative location for a meeting with Zelensky, Peskov replied: \u201cThere is a readiness to meet him in Moscow.\u201d Putin has repeatedly rejected offers for a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky aimed at brokering an end to more than four years of war, which have killed thousands of people and crippled both countries\u2019 economies.
\nOn Saturday, officials in Kyiv said intensifying strikes on key sectors, including energy, could see Ukrainian GDP slump by 1.5 points this year, and that this coming winter would be \u201cvery difficult\u201d. The latest offer comes as Washington seeks to kick-start long-stalled talks on Europe\u2019s deadliest conflict since World War II, with US negotiators visiting Kyiv and Moscow and President Donald Trump and Putin this week holding talks over the phone.
\nOn Friday, Trump\u2019s special envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner told a security forum in Kyiv via videolink that he hoped to announce the \u201cnext steps\u201d of talks to end the war within \u201ca couple of weeks\u201d. The United States holds this year\u2019s presidency of the Group of 20 major economies, which comprises 19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union.
\nRussia\u2019s finance minister has already attended one G20 meeting. Asked whether he would be willing to meet Putin at the December summit if both leaders were invited, Zelensky told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle: \u201cYes, of course.
\n\u201cWe have to come. We have to meet, to speak, and make decisions. It\u2019s not about words. What I will tell him or what he wants to tell me, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d All that mattered were \u201cresults\u201d, he added. In June Zelensky said he had proposed meeting Putin in the United States during a call with Trump, and was waiting to see what came of it.
\nThe Ukrainian leader previously said that Putin ignored an invitation to meet him at a G7 summit in France the same month. Last weekend, US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Moscow and Kyiv.
\nIn the DW interview, which took place Friday in Canada, Zelensky said that Witkoff and Kushner\u2019s visit was a \u201cgood signal\u201d, and it was important the pair had made a trip to Kyiv as well as Moscow. Zelensky has also announced he plans to meet Trump in late September, as Washington pushes for fresh face-to-face talks between Moscow and Kyiv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BERLIN Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Miami for talks on ending the war, in a media interview released Saturday, but the Kremlin immediately ruled it out. \u201cIt is impossible,\u201d Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told media in New Delhi on Saturday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n