Putin Says No Point to Meet After Zelenskyy Proposed a Face-to-Face Talk

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he currently saw no reason to meet Vladimir Zelensky after the Ukrainian president published an open letter proposing they hold face-to-face talks to end the war now in its fifth year. This letter contains some rather rude remarks. Was it a way to create the conditions for a face-to-face meeting or a way not to set up a face-to-face meeting? I think it was the latter, Putin said at Russia's annual economic forum in St. Petersburg. I don't see any point for now, he added. However, Putin agreed that the two sides need long-term agreements and suggested he would be willing to meet with Zelensky once the experts work out some solutions. In his Thursday letter, which was sent to other countries, including the US, Zelensky said the majority of Russians had grown tired of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, high inflation and fuel shortages, and were ready for peace. He also suggested that continuing the war could threaten Putin's own position, saying that history had shown that when Russia got tired, change followed.