No Plans for Putin-Zelensky Meeting, Lavrov Confirms Amid Diplomatic Tensions | World | london-news-net.preview-domain.com

No Plans for Putin-Zelensky Meeting, Lavrov Confirms Amid Diplomatic Tensions

August 29, 2025

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on Friday that there are no current arrangements for a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, countering recent claims by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suggested that discussions were imminent.

“President Putin has made it clear he is open to a meeting, but only if it has a substantive agenda,” Lavrov told NBC’s Meet the Press. “At this moment, no meeting is on the schedule.”

Following a gathering at the White House on Monday with Zelensky and European leaders, Trump indicated that plans were in place for a direct meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian heads of state, which would be followed by a trilateral summit including himself.

In the past, Putin has expressed that he would only engage with Zelensky if there was a pre-established agreement to end the conflict. Lavrov’s comments on Friday seemed to reinforce this position after days of ambiguous responses from Moscow, which hinted at openness but lacked a definitive commitment.

“President Trump put forward several points after our meeting in Anchorage that we find agreeable, and in some areas, we are willing to show flexibility,” Lavrov remarked, referring to the recent U.S.-Russia summit in Alaska. This meeting was largely viewed as an effort to ease Trump’s threats of imposing sanctions on Russia if it did not agree to a swift resolution of the war.

Lavrov also posited that the Kremlin and the White House were in agreement on some negotiation aspects, such as Trump’s opposition to Ukraine’s NATO membership and his belief that Kyiv should consider territorial concessions to Russia.

“Zelensky refused everything. He even rejected the notion of scrapping legislation against the use of the Russian language,” Lavrov said regarding the discussions at the White House, where Trump and Zelensky met with leaders from a coalition led by France and Britain. “How can we engage with someone who is not acting like a genuine leader?”

Trump has consistently maintained that Ukraine should not join NATO and should be open to making territorial concessions as part of a settlement process. However, contradictory statements about a potential Putin-Zelensky meeting, along with issues surrounding Western security guarantees for Ukraine, have led to speculation about gaps in alignment between U.S. and Russian officials.

Earlier in the week, Zelensky expressed a willingness to meet Putin but stated on Thursday that he sought more clarity regarding Western security assurances before confirming a summit with the Russian leader. Lavrov, on the other hand, asserted that Moscow must have a substantial influence on any discussions, further complicating what Western allies might be prepared to offer Kyiv.

Trump also mentioned to conservative news host Todd Starnes on Thursday that he would know “within two weeks” if progress was being made in the latest round of peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. “After that, we may need to consider a different approach,” he stated.

Regions Calling: Life With No Internet Is the New Normal Текст: Welcome toRegions Calling, your guide to developments beyond the Russian capital from The Moscow Times. In this edition, we examine how frequent — and in some cases permanent — mobile internet outages and restrictions have transformed the lives of ordinary people in Russia’s regions. But first, a look at the latest news: Authorities in the Siberian republics ofKhakassiaandSakha (Yakutia)have cut monetary support to soldiers fighting in Ukraine and their families due to budgetary constraints. Russia’s regions provide one-time payments from their local budgets for signing a military contract, when a soldier receives an injury in combat and in the event of a serviceman’s death. While Sakha authorities did not specify which payments will be aborted, Khakassia will no longer issue one-time payments of 1.1 million rubles ($14,000) to families of deceased soldiers, RFE/RL’s Siberian bureau Sibir.Realiireported. The head of therepublic of Buryatiacalledfor the eradication of cormorants, a large waterbird, from Lake Baikal, citing overpopulation concerns. Different scientists have different positions. Some say [cormorants are] supposed to exist and dont cause any harm. Others say they do. My personal position is that they definitely do, and we must fight them….Not by regulating them, but by eliminating them, Alexei Tsydenov said. Residents of at least two remote settlements have been raising alarm in recent weeks over continued food supply shortages that authorities blame on weather-related disruptions. The village of Nikolskoe, the only inhabited settlement on the Far EastCommander Islands, was leftwithoutfresh supplies of food and necessities, leaving all stores on the island nearly empty. The first delivery of 50 tons of food in over three months reached the island on Thursday,accordingto local media. Residents of Surinda, a reindeer herding settlement in theKrasnoyarsk region,sharedimages of emptying store shelves earlier this week. Locals said the only items still available were spices, tea, cereals and pasta. In Russia’s Regions, Protracted Internet Blackouts Have Long Been the Norm This month, authorities in theUlyanovsk regionintroducedrestrictions on mobile internet access that are due to remain in effect until the end of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The outage was meant to be limited to areas near sensitive government and military facilities, but entire suburbs in the regional capital Ulyanovsk were cut off from mobile internet access, The Moscow Times’ local sources said. Though the Volga River region was the first in the country to impose a permanent mobile internet blackout, recurring cellular internet shutdowns have been a part of daily life in dozens of regions for months, ostensibly for security reasons, according to residents who spoke to MT and local media reports. “It is extremely inconvenient. The jamming is constant. Some parts of the city never have internet. Sometimes I lose GPS while driving and suddenly have no idea where to go next,” said a woman from Ufa, the capital of therepublic of Bashkortostanin the Ural Mountains. She spoke on condition of anonymity. A major oil-refining complex in Ufa owned by Bashneft has been frequentlytargetedby Ukrainian drones, leading to large adjacent areas of the city as well as the city’s only airport being cut off from mobile internet due to security concerns. Jamming of mobile calls is also not uncommon, locals living near the refinery say. “I order taxis through Wi-Fi at home 100% of the time. Otherwise, I use a bus or walk,” said another woman based in Ufa who also requested anonymity. Residents of other regional capitals across Russia have faced a similar plight, with some locals calling their internet-deprived suburbs “an exclusion zone” — as opposed to city centers where internet connectivity is often stable. This is a systemic problem for Russia…We need to come to terms with it and understand that the special military operation is not somewhere 2,000 kilometers away and that we are also participants in these events, Bashkortostan’s head Radiy Khabirovsaidof the outages earlier this month, using the Kremlin-sanctioned term for the war in Ukraine. Ufa residents who spoke with The Moscow Times said the outages have forced them to store more of their money in cash and rely less on taxi apps. Businesses are increasingly switching to SMS messages to schedule appointments and communicate with clients as well. The amount of cash in circulation in Russiaincreasedby 659 billion rubles ($8 billion) between July and September this year, five times more than during the same period last year, according to Central Bank data. Analysts say this trend is directly tied to frequent internet outages that prevent people from paying digitally. The internet shutdowns cost the Russian economy around $295 million per day,accordingto the independent watchdog Internet Defense Society. Bashkortostan alone loses $3.9 million every day. Though many regional administrations have vowed to include banking applications in the so-called “white list” of services meant to remain accessible during shutdowns, users who spoke with MT said they could not connect to these apps most of the time. In addition to banking services and the Mir payment system, “white lists” include government services provider Gosuslugi, Russian tech platform Yandex, social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, as well as online marketplaces Ozon and Wildberries. These services also function inconsistently during shutdowns, users said. The North Caucasus republic ofIngushetia, Russia’s smallest ethnic republic, has been dealing with mobile internet shutdowns since July and the outages have continued since, according to localreports. Ingushetia’s head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatovsaidthis month that he had largely switched to a landline phone due to frequent jamming. “You know, its a more reliable [mode of communication]. Of course, you can’t carry it with you, but in the evening, you can come home and check in with everyone you need,” Kalimatov said during his annual televised call-in show. Eastward in therepublic of Dagestan, mobile internet jamming has also been nearly constant since August. “I have been living in Moscow for 10 years. Upon arriving in Dagestan, you immediately feel as if you’ve ended up in some kind of [Native American] reservation,” a native of Dagestansaidin a message published by local news outlet Chernovik. “There is no working internet, no electricity, no water or gas, the roads are full of potholes, and the healthcare system is struggling,” they added. Mobile internet shutdowns have been recorded in at least half of Russia’s regions every day in November,accordingto the open-source analytical project Russian Internet Monitor. “I have a feeling that people got used to feeling desperate and helpless, though everyone is willing to help when needed,” said a woman in her 20s from Kazan, the capital of therepublic of Tatarstan. The woman, who requested anonymity, also described the frequent experience of “entering anything from a hookah lounge to a hospital” to find a Wi-Fi connection while moving around the city. “[Internet outages] take away the feeling of certainty and security, especially from the older generation…They stop responding to messages, and it is unclear how to communicate with them — they lose the ability to do things in the usual ways, and they completely lose the desire to bother trying,” she told The Moscow Times. “I’m sure this is how generations drift apart,” she added. St. Petersburgactivist Lena Patyayeva wasarrestedfor staging a single-person protest outside a police station in honor of her disappeared friend Seda Suleimanova. “You gave her away to die. Now live with it. Where is Seda Suleimanova?” read the sign that Patyayeva was holding. The activist has beenactively searchingfor Suleimanova since August 2023, when the Chechen woman was forcibly returned from St. Petersburg to her native republic by the Russian police. Some fear Suleimanova may have been killed in a so-called “honor killing” — a practice in which a woman is murdered by a relative, typically a man, for allegedly bringing shame to her family.

rimmaruslan98@gmail.com December 1, 2025

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