Russia-Ukraine-US: Tensions continue over Putin-Zelenskyy meeting

Moscow has said it must be part of any international talks on Ukraine’s security, The Guardian writes.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said on Wednesday that Moscow must be included in any talks on Ukraine’s security guarantees, dismissing European diplomacy as “aggressive escalation” and a “clumsy effort to sway Trump”.

“To discuss security guarantees seriously without Russia is a road to nowhere,” Lavrov said during a working visit to Jordan.

Lavrov also said that China, Russia’s ally in the war, should be among Ukraine’s security guarantors.

European leaders have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, following Trump’s pledge to help protect the country under any deal to end Russia’s war. However, Russian officials have repeatedly said Moscow would not accept the deployment of European forces to Ukraine, one of the key security guarantees under discussion.

Kyiv is likely to view with skepticism any prospect of China, a supporter of Russia during the war, acting as a security guarantor.

Lavrov, meanwhile, avoided any direct reference to a possible Putin-Zelenskyy summit, highlighting the Kremlin’s apparent plans to delay any concrete planning of a meeting.

Trump announced this week he had “begun the arrangements” for the first meeting between the two leaders since the start of Russia’s invasion.

But Trump’s promise of a meeting puts Putin in a difficult spot: rejecting it risks tension with the US president, while agreeing to one would elevate Zelenskyy to equal status.

Moscow has shown scant sign of preparing for such an encounter. Lavrov cautioned on Wednesday that any contact between the two leaders would need to be arranged “with the utmost care”, while other Russian officials dismissed Zelenskyy as a lightweight unworthy of serious attention.

Analysts suggested that the Russian leader would probably only meet Zelenskyy to accept Russia’s maximalist conditions, which would equal Ukraine’s capitulation.

Russia’s leadership on Wednesday showed no sign of compromise. Lavrov said the US was beginning to gain a clearer understanding of the “root causes” of the war – a phrase Putin has used to describe demands ranging from Ukraine’s formal renunciation of Nato membership to its “demilitarisation” and “denazification”, a vague formula that in practice would mean removing Zelenskyy.