The Russian president says peace summit can only happen in Moscow, while the Ukrainian leader calls the idea a stalling tactic.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that the two leaders meet in Moscow for peace talks, saying that he refuses to travel to the capital of a country still bombarding his nation.
“He can come to Kyiv,” Zelenskyy told ABC News in a Sept. 5 interview. “I can’t go to Moscow when my country’s under missiles, under attack, each day. I can’t go to the capital of this terrorist.”
Putin, speaking earlier this week in Beijing and again at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, said he remained open to negotiations with Zelenskyy—but only in Moscow.
“If a meeting in question is well-prepared and may potentially lead to positive results, we can have it, and I never turned this idea down,” Putin said during a press conference in Beijing on Sept. 3. “By the way, Donald [Trump] asked me, if possible, to hold such a meeting. I told him it was possible. After all, if Zelenskyy is ready, he can come to Moscow, and we will have such a meeting.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, rejected the offer, accusing Putin of “making knowingly unacceptable proposals.”
The back-and-forth comes as President Donald Trump continues to press for direct talks between the two wartime leaders. “Ultimately, I’m going to put the two of them in a room,” Trump told Fox News last month. He hosted separate meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy in August and said he would give them two weeks to explore the possibility of a bilateral summit.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly accused Putin of not being serious about peace talks while continuing the war in Ukraine. On Sept. 5, he told ABC during a visit to a U.S.-owned factory in Kyiv that Putin is stalling and “playing games with the United States.”
At the Vladivostok forum the same day, Putin cast doubt on the usefulness of direct talks, pointing to what he described as Ukraine’s political and constitutional dysfunction.
“Even if they have political will—which I doubt—there are legal and technical difficulties,” he said, citing martial law, suspended courts, and alleged corruption. Still, he said Russia was ready to host Zelenskyy. “If someone really wants to meet with us, we are ready. The best place for it is the capital of the Russian Federation, the hero city of Moscow.”
It comes as European and U.S. officials are moving ahead with discussions on postwar security guarantees for Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a summit in Paris on Sept. 4 involving Zelenskyy and leaders from more than two dozen countries to shape a package of military commitments aimed at deterring future Russian aggression. Macron said the “coalition of the willing” would eventually provide a “reassurance force” of land, air, and naval units, but only after the conflict ends.
Speaking to a forum in Italy on Sept. 5, Zelenskyy highlighted efforts to build a broad “security system on land, in the air, and at sea” to pressure Russia toward peace. He said 35 countries are now part of the coalition of the willing, with 26 ready to provide concrete security support, including the United States. However, Zelenskyy told participants by video link that it’s important that the “security guarantees start working now, during the war, and not only after it ends.”
In response to the plans, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that resolving security issues without involving Russia was a “road to nowhere.” Putin went further in Vladivostok, declaring that any foreign troops deployed to Ukraine before a final peace agreement would be “legitimate targets for destruction.”
Trump, meanwhile, has voiced impatience at the lack of progress.
Meeting Polish President Karol Nawrocki at the White House on Sept. 3, the U.S. president said that if Putin resists talks, “you’ll see things happen.”
Trump has already imposed new tariffs on India for buying Russian oil and hinted at further sanctions against Moscow.
