Putin open to contact with European leaders – Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has always said that he is open to talks with European leaders, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
The remark came shortly after the second day of trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine talks ended in Abu Dhabi. European representatives, who traveled to the UAE to meet separately with Ukrainian and US delegates, have not been included in the negotiations.
The Russian president has not yet decided whether he will attend the next G20 Leaders’ Summit, Peskov said. The event is scheduled for December 14-15 in Florida, US.
“Putin has always maintained, and continues to maintain, that he is open to contact with everyone, including the Europeans,” he said, adding that this includes German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Merz has recently suggested that long-frozen Berlin-Moscow contacts could be renewed at the upcoming G20 summit.
“If [Putin] is there, I will not shy away from the opportunity to talk to him,” the German chancellor said last week.
However, at the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta last month, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul refused to participate in a traditional group photograph alongside his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. “We must avoid sending the wrong visual signal,” Wadephul told reporters.
The mixed signals come as European nations are vying to be admitted to the trilateral Ukraine peace negotiations. EU and UK representatives have been sidelined from every round of three-way talks thus far, but have insisted that they deserve a place at the table.
Moscow has stressed that European demands have remained locked on an unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine – something which Russia has said would only serve to give Kiev breathing room and time to rearm with Western supplies.
Russian presidential aide and chief negotiator at the talks, Vladimir Medinsky, has accused Kiev’s Western European backers of engaging in the “collective deception of the Ukrainian people.”
“They finance and supply weapons to one of the warring parties, effectively contributing to the mass deaths of civilians,” he told journalists on Wednesday, adding that Moscow sees little point in discussing the conflict with European governments at this stage. Russia has also yet to receive any peace proposals from Europe, he said.
European countries’ participation in the talks could be considered at some later stage in the process, Kremlin spokesman Peskov told journalists on Wednesday. “For the moment, the statements we hear from the Europeans do not indicate any desire on their part to contribute to progress along a peaceful path,” he said.
