{"id":112006,"date":"2026-06-13T05:35:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/112006\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T05:35:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:35:40","slug":"russia-president-vladimir-putin-rejects-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskyys-offer-to-meet-saying-he-sees-no-point-in-it-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/112006\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia President Vladimir Putin rejects Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to meet, saying he sees ‘no point’ in it | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia \u2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> for a face-to-face negotiation on the conflict, saying he sees \u201cno point\u201d in it.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022<\/a>, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader\u2019s 26 years in power.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum,<\/a> Putin described Zelenskyy\u2019s open letter proposing the meeting as \u201cboorish,\u201d particularly after a May 22 drone attack on a college dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region that Moscow said killed 21 and wounded scores of others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it a way to create conditions for personal meetings and talks, or create an environment which makes any personal meetings impossible?\u201d Putin said. \u201cI think it\u2019s the second.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that he sees \u201cno point\u201d in the meeting.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities<\/a>, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the fighting in Ukraine while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump had said it \u201cwould be great\u201d if Putin and Zelenskyy meet.<\/p>\n

Putin has previously offered for Zelenskyy to come to Moscow for talks, an offer that the Ukrainian leader pointedly rejected. Putin said last month he doesn\u2019t exclude a meeting in a third country, but only when there is a deal to sign.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Putin again rejected Zelenskyy\u2019s push for an immediate ceasefire, arguing that Moscow wants a comprehensive settlement, not a temporary truce.<\/p>\n

Putin said Russia is open for a compromise on Ukraine in line with understandings reached at his last year\u2019s summit with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, adding that Ukraine needs to accept them to make a deal to end the conflict, now in its fifth year.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNaturally, the Ukrainian side would like us to suspend the advances made by Russian troops,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it would be better to end the war by agreeing to the compromises that were discussed in Anchorage.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a speech earlier Friday at the forum, Putin said developing countries have gained an increasingly important role in the global economy, while the share of output by Western countries has shrunk.<\/p>\n

He accused the West of undermining the global economy and finances with unilateral sanctions. By freezing Russian assets abroad through sanctions, Western nations eroded trust in their own currencies, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sanctions and blocking of Russia\u2019s sovereign reserves have irreversibly impacted the standing of international currencies, the dollar and the euro,\u201d he said. \u201cJust like Russia, any other country could lose access to their legitimate assets in dollars or euros, as well as Western financial and payment systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

He alleged that high state debt had helped undermine global trust in Western institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe roots of the current global turbulence lie in the transition from a vertical, hierarchical model, which served the interests of a small number of states, to a more complex, distributed and multipolar one,\u201d Putin said. \u201cRussia views global changes not only as a threat but also as immense opportunities. And to capitalize on them, we aim to act swiftly and pragmatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Russian leader said the world needed a \u201cmodern, flexible and responsible financial architecture \u2013 free from risks, bans and barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin played down Russia\u2019s economic slowdown and sought to emphasize its macroeconomic stability. He noted that Russia\u2019s state debt is a fraction of that in Western countries and its budget deficit is considerably smaller, compared with the West.<\/p>\n

The forum comes at a time when Russia\u2019s economic outlook has clouded amid the conflict in Ukraine.<\/a> The government raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep its budget deficit under control.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Putin told heads of international media at a question-and-answer session that it was an exaggeration to say Russia’s economy was struggling. He noted that his government had taken deliberate steps to cool the economy to keep inflation under control.<\/p>\n

Putin has used the St. Petersburg forum, likened to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,<\/a> to showcase his country\u2019s economic advances and encourage foreign investment. While Western officials and business leaders have stayed away after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russia has sought guests from elsewhere to underline its declared goal of promoting a \u201cmultipolar world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia sent a large delegation this year, and the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania and vice president of China also gave speeches Friday. A U.S. official, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., head of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, is attending for the first time in years.<\/p>\n

Putin on Thursday acknowledged damaging Ukrainian drone attacks<\/a> inside Russia and pledged to bolster its defenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo our regret, some of them break through,\u201d Putin told the media session in talking about the drone strikes. \u201cRussia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours before the forum opened on Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze<\/a> an oil terminal in the city and also hit a nearby naval base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Russia \u2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[130],"tags":[13572,1332,57308,57309,329,326,57307,330,8792,325,1022],"class_list":["post-112006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-meeting","tag-military","tag-rejected","tag-rejection","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-russian-president-vladimir-putni","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116741178960046920","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}