Zelenskyy's meeting with Putin makes no sense now – Presidentʼs Office

ROMAN PETRENKO — SUNDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2022, 15:41

Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the head of the President’s Office, is convinced that at the moment there is no point either in negotiations or in the meeting of the head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the leader of the aggressor country Vladimir Putin.

Source: Podoliak in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda

Quote from Podoliak: "In short, there is no point in the negotiation process and a personal meeting of the presidents yet.

First, the Russian Federation still believes that it has enough resources to achieve some results. Secondly, any meeting today is exclusively a game in traditional Russian history: we are recording the status quo, dancing "deceptive Minsk dances", and starting a new stage of escalation. Operational pause and for more. And thirdly, Russia must be held accountable for large-scale crimes without hiding behind impunity. Thus, the war must reach the only possible ending. There is no other way.

Therefore, it is clear that the topic of a bilateral meeting is not on the agenda right now. Moreover, we are not at all interested in meetings for the sake of meetings or the same banal Russian negotiation "scenario". We are interested in liberation of the occupied territories, significant tactical defeats of the Russian Federation, and mandatory large-scale legal processes. Everything else is derivative from this."

Details: However, Podoliak stressed that the meeting of the presidents is possible if it is preceded by a complete withdrawal of Russian troops, and the subject of the conversation is a "discussion of post-war life, including the amount of reparations, compensation for losses and extradition of criminals."

Background: Putin said at a press conference following his visit to Uzbekistan that Zelenskyy has no desire to meet with the Kremlin leader and claimed at he had not seen any proposals on security guarantees for our country.

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