The Kremlin has dismissed the likelihood of a trilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky taking place in the near future.
“Well, frankly speaking, unlikely [that it will happen] in the near future,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday, according to Russian state media outlet TASS.
Peskov also added that Putin is prepared for the meeting, but that it must “result from agreements developed at the technical level, at the expert level.”
Ukrainian and Russian delegations met for the second time in person on Monday in Turkey. The meeting, which lasted just over an hour, did not yield a breakthrough in terms of ceasefire talks, but both sides did agree to swap more prisoners. The White House has previously said that Trump is open to having a meeting with both Putin and Zelensky.
Russia and Ukraine are still far apart on reaching a deal to end the three-year war in Eastern Europe.
Russian state media has reported that the Kremlin’s demands include not allowing Ukraine to be a part of any military alliance, downsizing Ukraine’s military, having Ukraine’s military withdraw from partially occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, having Russian as the country’s official language and lifting of international sanctions.
Ukraine has pushed for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, which Russia has refused to sign on to. Ukraine is demanding that Kyiv have no restrictions on the size of its military in any agreement, war reparations and that the international community refuse to recognize the Kremlin’s sovereignty in parts of Ukraine that it currently occupies.
Trump has pushed for months to end the biggest land war in Europe since World War II and has recently grown frustrated with Putin over the Russian military’s aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities.
The talks between the two sides in Turkey came a day after Ukraine unleashed a devastating aerial attack, unleashing smuggled drones deep inside Russia’s territory to bomb the Kremlin’s air bases. Ukrainian officials said the drones took out a third of Russia’s bomber fleet, damaging or destroying over 40 aircraft.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that it utilized underwater explosives to strike a bridge that connects Russia to Crimea.
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