• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Moscow: No Putin-Zelensky talks without agreed peace agenda

Iran Press TV

Friday, 22 August 2025 6:32 PM

Russia's top diplomat has said there will be no Putin-Zelensky meeting until the agenda for the peace deal between Kiev and Moscow has been agreed upon

"There is no meeting planned... [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is ready to meet with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, when the agenda would be ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all," Lavrov said on Friday.

US President Donald Trump's Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, had claimed on Sunday that during the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, Alaska, last week, the two leaders had agreed on the framework of an agenda to achieve peace in Ukraine.

Witkoff said the Russian leader had agreed to let the United States and its European allies provide Ukraine with security guarantees similar to NATO's collective defense framework as part of a potential agreement to end the three-and-a-half-year conflict.

"We secured a significant concession: the US could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the primary reasons Ukraine wants to join NATO," Witkoff stated on CNN's "State of the Union."

However, Witkoff's claims that the sides of the conflict had agreed upon an agenda to achieve peace in Ukraine were incorrect.

"President Trump suggested, after Anchorage several points which we share, and on some of them, we agreed to be to show some flexibility," Lavrov said.

"When President Trump brought those issues to the meeting in Washington with Zelensky present together with his European sponsors, he clearly indicated... that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership, including the discussion of territorial issues. And Zelensky said no to everything," he added.

"He even said no to, as I said, to canceling legislation prohibiting the Russian language. How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?" Lavroc added.

Russia's top diplomat pointed out that during the Alaska summit, the Russian leader had agreed to show some leniency on a number of issues raised by Trump. He said that the meeting between Putin and Zelensky has not been planned, but the Russian leader is ready to meet him. The top Russian diplomat said such an agenda is currently nonexistent.

Lavrov said the Russian leader's meeting with Zelensky will be planned when the summit agenda is ready.

In the meantime, the war in Ukraine continues to escalate.

The US president had initially set August 8 as the deadline for Putin to agree to end the war or face new sanctions targeting Russia and its oil buyers.

Instead, Trump decided to meet with Putin in Alaska last Friday.

Since then, Russia has largely held firm to its longstanding demands, while proposing to freeze the front line in two Ukrainian regions and expressing conditional willingness to return small portions of occupied territory.

In the meantime, according to Ukrainian military source, Russian troops fired 574 drones and 40 missiles on Thursday that struck western regions of the country, inflicting casualties.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted "enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex," including drone factories, storage depots, missile launch sites and areas where Ukrainian forces were gathered.

Ukraine, for its part, has stepped up drone attacks on Russian targets.

Since Moscow launched the special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, the US-led Western countries have been providing Kiev forces with countless weapons and munitions to fight against Russian troops.