A summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky can take place only as final step to conclude a peace agreement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, quoted by Reuters, BTA reported.
Peskov stressed that such a meeting was unlikely to take place by the end of August, as proposed by Ukraine. He again described the negotiating positions of the two sides as diametrically opposed.
"The summit can and should put an end to the dispute and consolidate the conditions and agreements agreed upon by the experts. It is impossible to do the opposite," Peskov told reporters. "Is it possible to go through such a complex process in 30 days? Well, it's obviously unlikely," he added.
A member of the Ukrainian delegation said after the third round of peace talks on Wednesday that Kiev had proposed a meeting between Putin and Zelensky in August because it would fall within the 50-day deadline that US President Donald Trump gave Moscow last week to reach an agreement, warning that it would face heavy sanctions and tariffs.
Yesterday, Peskov said that Russia had not expected a breakthrough in the third round of talks with Ukraine. "We did not expect a breakthrough. A breakthrough is hardly possible," the spokesman stressed. He described the Russian proposals for the negotiations as concrete and constructive: "The agenda is constructive, concrete and aimed precisely at specific work that can lead to the achievement of specific results".
The agreements on the exchange of citizens and bodies of soldiers, reached during the third round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and their implementation should be assessed positively: "This is an extremely important humanitarian aspect, which, from our point of view, should be on the agenda. But this is still a positive aspect".
After discussions in the "Cherraan" palace, which lasted about two hours, the negotiators found that their positions were "quite distant", the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, told journalists. The TASS news agency reported that the talks lasted about 40 minutes.
On the day of the meeting, the Kremlin dashed hopes for a breakthrough in ending the conflict that Moscow started in 2022 against the neighboring country, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries, Reuters notes.
The only concrete measure that the negotiators agreed on was the exchange of prisoners of war. Medinsky and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that last night the two sides had completed an exchange in which each side returned more than 1,000 captured servicemen to the other.
The first two rounds of talks took place in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2. The two sides then concluded an agreement to exchange prisoners of war, giving priority to the youngest and most seriously wounded, as well as to return the remains of 6,000 soldiers from each side.