“We have hosted today, I would say, good and constructive talks — necessary after events of the last week,” Støre told reporters after the meeting. “Steve Witkoff will fly tomorrow to St. Petersburg where he will be meeting with Russian leadership and exchange ideas from this meeting and the proposals that have been worked on by European and American colleagues, and possibly pave the way for a meeting at leaders’ level.”
Previous attempts to get Putin to meet Zelenskyy in person have fallen flat, with the Kremlin recently insisting a meeting could only take place in Moscow.
Zelenskyy told the press conference that the day had been positive. He said issues around the future of Ukrainian territory could only be discussed by leaders and that any peace settlement would require genuine security guarantees. A deal would only be acceptable if Ukraine is involved in designing it, he said.