Putin rejected Zelensky's proposal for a meeting

Putin, in response to a question from the moderator of the SPIEF plenary session, Indian journalist Gita Mohan, commented on Zelensky’s open letter, which he published the day before with a proposal for a personal meeting and a truce. The tone of the answer was tellingly dismissive.

Putin said: “Peskov showed me Zelensky’s letter yesterday, I looked at this piece of paper in the morning.” Then I went through each thesis.

Zelensky mentioned Putin’s age in the letter - he responded: “The main thing is not age, but capacity and performance. At my age, many political figures are exercising their functions, and some are older than me.”

In response to the proposal for a meeting, he replied that he did not yet see the point in it: the Ukrainian side wants to stop the Russian offensive, while Moscow needs “agreements for a long-term historical perspective,” and not a short-term pause. Russia no longer wants agreements like Minsk, he added.

Putin does not understand why Kyiv does not want to see the Trump administration as a guarantor of future agreements, despite the fact that it is interested in American support. Putin thanked Trump for working on Zelensky’s “manners” - and noted that “there is still something to work on.”

Separately, Putin said that Zelensky had recently asked him for a meeting through a certain Russian businessman - according to Putin, this request was received on May 21, the day before the attack on the college in Starobelsk. Putin called Kyiv’s transition to open polemics “completely wrong,” and the letter itself contained “boorish elements.”

Putin advised Zelensky “not to be afraid” and go to the polls. He finished his answer to the question about the letter with an appeal to the Russian military: “Work, brothers.”