Ahmed Kamel – Egypt Daily News
Russia has dismissed the possibility of an imminent meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as diplomatic tensions with the United States grow and American mediation efforts appear to falter.
Speaking on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there were “no plans for a meeting” between the two leaders. His remarks came as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv to discuss key security issues, including potential security guarantees for Ukraine.
Earlier in the week, former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has separately met with both leaders in recent months, expressed optimism about the prospect of a summit. However, speaking again on Friday, Trump tempered expectations, likening Putin and Zelensky to “oil and water,” and describing the idea of bringing them together in one room as “extremely difficult.”
“These two leaders simply don’t see eye to eye and for very obvious reasons,” Trump told reporters in Washington.
Lavrov cast further doubt on the possibility of direct peace talks, questioning Zelensky’s legitimacy as president and reiterating the Kremlin’s hardline conditions for negotiations. In an interview with NBC, Lavrov claimed Putin was “ready to meet” once a concrete agenda was set, but insisted Zelensky was “not ready at all.”
For his part, President Zelensky, appearing alongside NATO’s Rutte in Kyiv, said Ukraine had “no agreements with Russia,” clarifying that any diplomatic framework had only been discussed with Trump’s team. He accused Moscow of deliberately avoiding a summit to prolong its military campaign.
“Russia doesn’t want talks. It wants to continue attacking,” Zelensky said on Thursday.
Security Guarantees and the Search for Peace
At the heart of ongoing diplomatic efforts is the question of security guarantees for Ukraine, an issue the U.S. sees as central to any lasting peace. Trump has suggested that Russia has shown tentative agreement on some Western proposals for security arrangements for Ukraine, though Moscow has publicly expressed skepticism.
Lavrov, speaking Wednesday, dismissed the idea of discussing such guarantees without Russia’s involvement as “fantasy” and a “path to nowhere.”
Zelensky, who has called for the presence of foreign forces in Ukraine to deter future Russian aggression, questioned the rationale behind Moscow’s fears. “When Russia talks about security guarantees, I honestly don’t know who is threatening them,” he said.
The Kremlin, however, has repeatedly cited Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO as one of the core justifications for its military actions. Lavrov reiterated this to NBC, stating: “There are many principles Washington wants accepted, like Ukraine staying out of NATO and negotiations over territory, but Zelensky refuses all of them.”
While in Kyiv, Rutte emphasized the need for credible security guarantees that would ensure Russia cannot “take even one more square kilometer of Ukrainian land.” His visit coincided with renewed air raid sirens across the capital, a stark reminder of the ongoing war.
Broken Promises and a Long War
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has violated several prior commitments, most notably the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. In that agreement, Russia pledged to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan in exchange for the relinquishment of Soviet-era nuclear weapons on their soil.
That commitment was first breached with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and later shattered entirely by the full-scale invasion in 2022. The war has since killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
Now entering its fourth year, the war shows little sign of nearing a resolution. With direct dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv off the table for the foreseeable future, international actors remain divided on how best to end the conflict. Meanwhile, Ukrainians continue to brace for further violence, and Russia’s stance grows only more entrenched.
As diplomatic efforts falter and military operations drag on, the war remains locked in a stalemate, one that no summit, for now, seems able to break.
