26 April 2021, Monday, 18:38 177

Zelenskyy Instructs Yermak To Agree With Russian Presidential Administration On Date And Place Of Meeting With Putin

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed the head of the Presidential Office, Andrii Yermak, to coordinate with the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation the date and place of his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

He announced this to journalists, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

“It seems to me that everything is going to the point that this meeting will take place. I really offered to meet in Donbas, the President of the Russian Federation confirmed his desire to meet, but suggested me to meet in Moscow. I have already given a task to the head of the Presidential Office, Andrii Yermak, to connect with the Administration of President Putin, and they found mutual understanding, found a time frame and a place or city where we can meet," he said.

Zelenskyy added that the main thing is the essence and content of the meeting, not the date and place.

Earlier, Putin, in response to Zelenskyy's offer to meet in Donbas, said that the issues of Donbas the Ukrainian authorities should discuss first with the so-called leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics", and if discuss bilateral Ukrainian-Russian relations, he is ready to accept Zelenskyy in Moscow at any convenient time.

Zelenskyy did not comment on Putin's reluctance to discuss Donbas, but reacted to the words of the President of the Russian Federation about the deterioration of Russian-Ukrainian relations, including the alleged oppression of the Russian language and the church in Ukraine.

"Our people speak freely. Historically, people are very literate and speak different languages. Now all the children of the new generation speak English perfectly, better than our generation. Everyone knows Russian, but we remember that our language, the state language is Ukrainian. Regarding churches, I have always said that the state is separate from the church. And I have never used the heads of churches to influence the population from the point of view of the electorate. We have both free people and churches. People go to that church that they want to go," he said.

Zelenskyy called these issues a continuation of the informational narrative about the alleged infringement of Russian speakers in Ukraine.

"I do not see any problem in this. But even if these issues are on the agenda at the meeting, if it does take place, then please, we will discuss these issues, I do not see a problem," he said.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Ukraine is asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to mediate negotiations between Zelenskyy and Putin.