Russia is trying to stop meeting on peace and prolong war, Zelensky says

Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky has accused Russia of “doing everything it can” to prevent a meeting with Vladimir Putin to try to end the war.

US President Donald Trump has sought to bring the two leaders together, but he said on Friday “that’s like oil and vinegar… they don’t get along too well”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin was ready to meet Ukraine’s leader “when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all”, accusing Zelensky of saying “no to everything”.

After an intensive week of diplomacy, in which Trump first met Putin in Alaska and then Zelensky with European leaders in Washington, the US president said the war was turning out to be the most difficult he had tried to stop.

Trump said after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that he had begun arrangements for a Putin-Zelensky summit that he would join afterwards.

Ukraine’s president has backed the move, but he has sought security guarantees from Western allies to prevent any future Russian attack in the event of a peace deal: “Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not afraid of any meetings between leaders.”

On a visit to Kyiv, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said Trump was aiming to “break the deadlock” and the alliance was working on robust security guarantees with the US and Europe to ensure Putin “will never ever try to attack Ukraine again”.

He went on to accuse Ukraine of not showing the same flexibility in subsequent talks in Washington, blaming Ukraine for hindering progress toward a peace deal.

Lavrov said it was “very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted”.

He said this included no Nato membership for Ukraine and discussions of territorial issues: “Zelensky said no to everything,” Lavrov said.

He was speaking after EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told the BBC that Putin was seeking territorial concessions from Ukraine that were a “trap that Putin wants us to walk into”.

“We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here,” Kallas said.

Later on Friday, Putin said there was “light at the end of the tunnel” for Russia-US relations, referring to last week’s meeting with Trump in Alaska which he referred to as “very good, meaningful and frank”.

The Russian leader said Trump’s “leadership qualities” would help restore relations from recent lows.

He did not mention Ukraine or a meeting with Zelensky.

Despite latest efforts to broker a peace deal, Russia launched one of its heaviest attacks on Ukraine in weeks on Thursday, launching 574 drone and 40 missiles in one night.