The Kremlin has ruled out any meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the G20 summit in Miami, insisting that any face-to-face talks between the two leaders can only happen in Moscow.
The response came after Zelensky said in a Deutsche Welle interview released on Saturday that he would be willing to meet Putin at the summit to discuss ways of ending the war, provided both leaders were invited to attend. Speaking to AFP in New Delhi, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the idea outright, stating that it was impossible and that Russia remained ready to hold such a meeting only in its own capital.
The G20 summit is due to take place in Miami on December 14 and 15, though it remains unclear whether Putin will attend at all. Putin has repeatedly turned down previous offers for direct talks with Zelensky aimed at ending the war, which has now stretched past four years. Zelensky noted separately that Putin had also ignored an earlier invitation to meet him at a G7 summit in France.
In the interview, Zelensky argued that Ukraine now held a stronger negotiating position given recent battlefield setbacks for Russian forces, and said he planned to meet US President Donald Trump again in late September as Washington continues pushing for renewed talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
His comments followed a visit to both Moscow and Kyiv last weekend by US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as a phone call this week between Trump and Putin.
Officials in Kyiv also said over the weekend that intensifying Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy sector could shrink the country’s GDP by 1.5 percentage points this year, warning that the coming winter would be very difficult for the country.
