Ukraine is working on a plan that will become “the start and the basis” for holding negotiations with Russia in any format, President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters. He said that three points of the plan are already ready, without giving further details. In his words, meetings have already been held in an online format and “there will still be online and offline meetings.” He also did not explain exactly when this happened or who took part in the discussions.
Zelensky's press secretary Sergei Nikiforov later clarified that he was referring to meetings with representatives of countries that support the so-called Ukrainian peace formula, but there were no negotiations with Russian representatives.
Russia and Ukraine held several rounds of negotiations in 2022, almost immediately after Russia's involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, with the aim of demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, but the parties failed to reach an agreement and the process subsequently stalled.
According to Zelensky, taking into account the plan, kyiv is ready to talk "in any format, with any representative" of Russia, because Ukraine "has something to show."
Zelensky again said that Ukraine, like many of kyiv's allies, wants to see Russia at the second "peace summit." The first, which took place in Switzerland in mid-2024, was based on points of the Ukrainian "peace formula": nuclear security, prisoner exchange in a free-for-all format, and safe navigation. However, Russian representatives were not invited to the conference, so Moscow does not consider it necessary to discuss kyiv's proposals.
Russia, for its part, is insisting on the recognition of sovereignty over the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as over the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from these territories and Ukraine's formal refusal to join NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that this would allow "at the same time to immediately stop hostilities and save human lives."
Following the invasion of the Russian Kursk region by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on August 6, Putin called the negotiations useless. In early September, the Russian president said that Moscow had never refused to negotiate, “but, of course, we must deal with these bandits who have entered the territory” of Russia.
