Putin names condition for personal meeting with Zelensky
19 June 07:42
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has said that he is ready to negotiate with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but considers him “illegitimate,” and therefore he is not sure with whom to sign documents. He said this during a press conference with foreign journalists, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports, citing RosZmі.
“I am ready to meet with Zelensky. The question is, who will sign the documents? The documents must be signed by the legitimate authorities of Ukraine, otherwise they will have no force,” Putin said.
He emphasized that he does not object to Zelenskyy’s participation in possible negotiations if the Ukrainian side gives him the appropriate authority.
“But from a legal point of view, the term of his legitimacy, according to the Constitution of Ukraine, has expired,” the Kremlin dictator said.
Putin also noted that he considers a personal meeting with Zelenskyy only as the final stage of the negotiation process – to “sign documents.”
At the same time, he added:
“If the first person in Ukraine is illegitimate, then the entire system of power there becomes illegitimate.”
Also, according to Putin, the Russian negotiating team is ready for contacts with the Ukrainian side after June 22, and is currently in contact with it.
He repeated the Kremlin’s traditional narrative that Russia is seeking to end the war, “preferably through diplomatic means.”
At the same time, he threatened that the situation for Ukraine “could get worse.”
“If they don’t reach an agreement, the situation may change for the worse. There is no need to drag it out. We need to sit down and negotiate,” Putin said, recalling the terms of the 2022 Istanbul agreement, which were “much softer than now.”
At the same time, Putin said that Russia “did not start hostilities in Ukraine, but is trying to end them.”
