Zelensky admits being nudged to negotiate with Moscow

"There are those who are urging me to sit at the negotiating table," he said. "But I don’t see anything to discuss."

Zelensky also said he saw no point in French President Emmanuel Macron’s negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I don’t think they can produce any result," the Ukrainian leader said.

Macron said on many occasions that he maintained communication channels for a dialogue with Putin. According to the French leader, he expected to discuss the safety of nuclear facilities in Ukraine with his Russian counterpart soon, TASS reported.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had to backtrack on his earlier claim about the impossibility of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government "due to soft nudging by the Biden administration," the Politico newspaper wrote last month citing own sources. According to the paper, Zelensky made no mention of the impossibility of talks with Putin when he listed the five preconditions for talks with Moscow earlier that month. The article said the change in the Kyiv government’s position occurred after lengthy negotiations between Kyiv and Washington, including during a visit to Kyiv by the US president’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Russian leadership stood ready to continue negotiations on Ukraine. He noted that Russia was ready to hear out its Western colleagues if they put forward a proposal to organize a dialogue on reducing tensions, taking into account Moscow’s interests. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also suggested that talks on Ukraine should be conducted above all with Washington since Kyiv is acting "on external orders."

MP/PR