Vladimir Putin claims that Vladimir Zelensky asked him for a personal meeting through a Russian businessman, 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 of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
According to Putin, three weeks ago, “a representative of business circles” said he had been invited to Kiev. The businessman called on the president to “look and listen” to what is happening there. Putin explained: “He went to Kiev and met this man – the writer of this letter. At his residence there.”
Upon his return, the businessman conveyed Zelensky’s verbal request to Putin for a meeting, the president said. Commenting on this in the plenary session, Putin said (as before) that he had never refused to hold a meeting, but that he did not want to “go from empty to empty.”
“It was, I think, on May 21,” Putin said. “On May 22, Ukrainian forces carried out a horrific terrorist attack on a university residence in the Lugansk People’s Republic, where children and teenagers were killed.” According to him, the businessman asked “what does it mean – they ask for a meeting and commit such terrible crimes.” The businessman responded that he had no explanation, but that they were “contacting him now” from Kiev – and promised to call the Russian president later. Putin claims they never spoke again after that. He did not mention the name of 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 publication of the letter, Putin was holding a meeting with foreign journalists at SPIEF. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin was informed of Zelensky’s letter and promised that the Russian president would respond to it during the plenary session.
The only Russian businessman who participated in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in 2022 was Roman Abramovich. The Financial Times reported that Abramovich then became Putin’s “confidant”, and Zelensky asked the United States to postpone imposing sanctions on Abramovich. After Donald Trump replaced Joe Biden in the White House, a new special envoy of Putin appeared on the Russian side – the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev. He has met with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff several times (including in the US), but none of his trips to Kiev are known.