"Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine At the same time , Andrey Yermak stated that he found it incorrect to invite Vladimir Putin to Kiev", - the agency "RIA Novosti" reports.
Vladimir Zelenskyy today, April 26, noted that he was ready to meet with Vladimir Putin anywhere. "The place does not matter, we are talking about the content", - he noted, adding later that he had already "given a task to Andrey Yermak to contact the administration of President Putin so that they could find mutual understanding, find terms and a place where we can meet", - notes the Interfax agency .
But Vladimir Putin, inviting the President of Ukraine to Moscow, added that the Kiev authorities should first start a dialogue with the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and only then with the Kremlin. Leader of the unrecognized DPR Denis Pushilin noted that a direct dialogue with Ukraine is necessary for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbass.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, commenting on this correspondence dialogue, noted that Vladimir Zelenskyy would not go to Moscow, in his opinion, the discussion of the Donbas crisis should continue within the framework of the Normandy format. Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the contact group on Donbass, former president of the country Leonid Kravchuk said that Vladimir Zelensky can only negotiate with Vladimir Putin in a neutral country.
The so-called "Normandy format" of negotiations on Ukraine has existed since June 2014. It got its name from the French province of Normandy, where the Second Front of World War II was opened in 1944. During the celebration of the 70th anniversary of this event, the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine discussed for the first time the possibilities for resolving the conflict that had just begun in Donbass.
Vladimir Zelenskyy also announced his recent attempts to "talk to Putin on the phone:" I called - they didn’t answer me, ”he told Le Figaro newspaper, explaining that the call to Moscow was not answered. However, on April 22, the minister Defense of Russia Sergey Shoigu said that the Russian troops involved in the exercises near the Ukrainian border will return to their places of permanent deployment by May 1.