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Zelenskyy fears backroom talks are a ploy to force Kyiv into surrender.
Moscow is floating a plan for a three-way summit this November to end the war in Ukraine.
But there is a glaring absence.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is unlikely to get an invitation.
Instead, the trilateral summit would see Russia, the US and China meet to discuss how the war should end.
Still a lot of unknowns
Plans remain tentative. Speaking to reporters, Peskov acknowledged that while no firm agenda exists, all three powers recognize that such talks could take place on the sidelines of the upcoming APEC summit.
In Washington, Donald Trump appears eager to keep dialogue open. He recently paused a sanctions bill against Moscow to avoid driving Russia away, clinched a diesel import deal, and placed blame on Zelenskyy for prolonging the fighting.
Fear of escalation
American officials insist their sole aim is stopping the carnage before it spills over into neighboring countries. During a diplomatic visit to Uzbekistan on Monday, as reported by Reuters, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the rumored trilateral gathering.
Asked about the potential summit, Rubio confirmed the chatter but cautioned that nothing is set in stone. “There’s been talks of a meeting. I don’t know whether it’s been finalized, but the president has been clear. He’d like the war in Ukraine and Russia to end,” he told reporters, according to Reuters.
“We see nothing good coming from this war,” Rubio said, stressing that military miscalculations could quickly drag neighboring nations into the fight. “We see a lot of downside to it, including the very real risk of escalation and spread of this thing… into another country because of a failed sabotage attack, because of drones that are hit with electronic warfare and they wander into a neighboring country.”
