Putin said that Zelensky asked for a personal meeting several weeks ago - through a Russian businessman who came to Kyiv

Vladimir Putin claims that Vladimir Zelensky asked him for a personal meeting through one of the Russian businessmen - several weeks before he published an open letter proposing to end the war. The President of the Russian Federation spoke about this during the plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

According to Putin, three weeks ago “one of the representatives of business circles” said that he was invited to Kyiv. The businessman invited the president to “look and listen” to what was happening there. “He went to Kyiv and met with this gentleman - the author of this letter. At his residence there,” Putin explained.

Upon his return, the president said, the businessman conveyed Zelensky’s verbal request to Putin for a meeting. Commenting on this at the plenary session, Putin (as before) said that he had never refused a meeting, but did not want to “shift from empty to empty.”

“It was, I think, May 21. And on May 22, Ukrainian troops carried out a terrible terrorist attack on a college dormitory in the Lugansk People’s Republic, where children and teenagers died,” Putin said. According to him, he asked the businessman “what does it mean - they ask for a meeting and commit such terrible crimes.” The businessman replied that he had no explanation, but “they’re calling him now” from Kyiv - and promised to contact the Russian president later. After that they did not speak again, Putin claims. He did not name his interlocutor and did not provide other details.

• On June 4, Vladimir Zelensky published an open letter in which he proposed to Vladimir Putin to end the war “through direct dialogue” and a personal meeting. At the time of the publication of the letter, Putin was holding a meeting with foreign journalists at SPIEF. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin was informed about Zelensky's letter and promised that the Russian president would respond to it during the plenary session.
• The only Russian businessman who participated in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia back in 2022 was Roman Abramovich. The Financial Times reported that Abramovich then became a “confidant” of Putin, and Zelensky asked the United States to postpone the introduction of sanctions against Abramovich. After Donald Trump replaced Joe Biden in the White House, Putin’s new special envoy appeared on the Russian side - the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev. He met with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff several times (including in the United States), but any of his trips to Kyiv are unknown.