Ukraine will not invite Vladimir Putin to Kyiv. There is no point, because he would not come, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a briefing in Berlin.
Inviting Putin only for him not to come is destructive, he said. He believes it is equally destructive for Russia to invite the Ukrainian president.
“It is simply spitting in the face of the whole world, which wants the war to end. That is why no one will support trips to Moscow. It is clear why — I have already answered. Talk on the phone? Of course, Russia will use it as an opportunity not to meet again. And we understand this game; it has no prospects,” he said.
A phone call with Putin would be “very official, dry”, in which Volodymyr Zelenskyy would listen to a history lecture rather than discuss real steps on how to genuinely end the war.
“You have to sit down, negotiate, and demonstrate where that side is wrong, because it is the aggressor,” he noted.
Russian officials have repeatedly spoken of their “readiness” to invite Zelenskyy to Moscow. Recently, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov also said that if Zelenskyy called the Kremlin, its head would pick up the phone.