THE Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying he was ready for direct talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as “empty words”.
Talk of a negotiated end to the nearly three-year conflict has risen with Donald Trump — who has pledged to end the fighting — back in the White House and Ukraine’s troops struggling on the battlefield in the east.
Asked how he would feel if he sat opposite Putin at a negotiating table, Zelensky told British journalist Piers Morgan in an interview published Tuesday: “If that is the only set-up in which we can bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine and not lose people, definitely we will go for this set-up.”
On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists: “So far, this cannot be seen as anything but empty words.”
Putin last week said Moscow would hold talks with Ukraine but ruled out speaking directly to Zelensky.
A decree signed by Zelensky in 2022 rules out direct talks with Putin — something Peskov pointed to on Wednesday and that Moscow regularly highlights when asked if it is ready for talks with Kyiv.
The Kremlin spokesman also reiterated Russia’s frequent claim that Zelensky is not a legitimate president, as his five-year mandate in office expired last year.
Under martial law, Ukraine has a ban on holding elections.
“Zelensky has big problems de jure (legally) in Ukraine. But even despite that we remain ready for talks,” Peskov said, saying that the “reality on the ground” meant that Kyiv had to “be the first to demonstrate openness and interest in such talks.”
After the interview, Zelensky posted comments Wednesday on social media saying that talks with Putin in themselves would be a “compromise” for Ukraine and its allies.
“Putin is a murderer and a terrorist. This is a fact,” he said, in comments live-translated into English.
