Zelensky says he sent message to Putin through Abramovich
Russian businessman Roman Abramovich visited Kyiv to discuss with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the situation surrounding Russia's war against Ukraine and possible ways to end it.
This was stated by Zelensky himself in an interview with the British television channel Sky News on Sunday evening, June 7.
According to him, the purpose of the conversation, the confidentiality of which Abramovich insisted on, was to find out what Ukraine was ready to do to conclude peace. "I answered him: it's not about us, you are fighting against us on our territory. And I told him about Donbas, and that was the key message. I said: we are not leaving, we will not abandon our territory. We will not give you victory this way," the president of Ukraine emphasized.
"We talked about some kind of compromise, and I said: any compromise is after the end of the fire. The end of the fire is the biggest compromise for you from our side," added Volodymyr Zelensky.
He also repeated that he is ready to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin "on any day, starting tomorrow, in any format" on neutral territory: "Not in Russia, not in Belarus, not in Minsk." As Zelensky added, he would not object to the participation of U.S. President Donald Trump and Europeans in such negotiations. "Or we could choose a bilateral meeting," he clarified.
Earlier, the Financial Times newspaper wrote, citing four sources, that in May of this year Volodymyr Zelensky invited Roman Abramovich to Kyiv to send a message to Vladimir Putin. At the same time, the president of Ukraine expressed readiness to hold his first personal meeting with Vladimir Putin since the start of Russia's full-scale military invasion of his country.
As the journalists' interlocutors pointed out, "Ukraine wanted to demonstrate the seriousness of its intentions to conduct direct peace negotiations with Russia, even when the United States, which was trying as a mediator to reach a ceasefire agreement, is occupied with the war in the Middle East."
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 5, Vladimir Putin stated that a certain "representative of Russian business circles" informed him that he was "invited to Kyiv." This businessman, the Kremlin chief continued, "went to Kyiv and met with the author of this letter (Volodymyr Zelensky. - Ed.)," after which he also met with Putin.
Vladimir Putin also claimed that Zelensky asked him for a meeting, but he refused. In the opinion of the Russian president, there would be meaning in such a meeting only for the Ukrainian side - supposedly to stop the Russian offensive.
As the online publication The Insider recalls, Roman Abramovich participated in mediation contacts between Russia and Ukraine from the first weeks of the full-scale war between the states: "He was connected with the negotiations in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, as well as with negotiations on the grain deal and prisoner exchanges."
Source: DW
