MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday there was no agenda for a potential summit between President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of saying “no to everything”.

Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker”, Lavrov said Putin had made clear he was ready to meet Zelensky to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Ukraine provided there was a proper agenda for such a session, something he said was lacking for now.

Both Russia and Ukraine are trying to show Donald Trump that they are ready to try to strike a peace deal, something the US leader has said he wants to broker, while accusing the other of not being sincere or ready to negotiate in good faith.

“Putin is ready to meet Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov told NBC, saying no meeting was therefore planned for now.

Lavrov said Russia had agreed to show flexibility on a number of issues raised by Trump at a US-Russia summit last week, but accused Ukraine of not showing the same flexibility in talks with Trump and European allies that followed in Washington.

“He (Trump) clearly indicated _ it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no Nato membership (for Ukraine), including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything,” said Lavrov.

“He even said no to, as I said, to cancelling legislation banning the Russian language. How can we meet a person who is pretending to be a leader?”

Trump had imposed an Aug 8 deadline for Putin to agree an end to the war or face new sanctions against Russia and countries that buy its oil, but instead agreed to meet the Kremlin leader at a summit in Alaska last Friday.

Since then, Russia has shown little movement, maintaining most of its longstanding demands while proposing to freeze the front line in two Ukrainian regions it claims as its own, and expressing a readiness to potentially hand back relatively small pieces of Ukrainian territory it controls.

Putin wants Ukraine to give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join Nato, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country.

Zelensky, who has said he does not want to “gift” Russia any territory, said on Friday the Kremlin was doing everything it could to make sure that a meeting between him and Putin did not take place. He called on Ukraine’s allies to apply fresh sanctions on Moscow if it showed no desire to end the war.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2025