Kyiv, Ukraine – Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov and US counterpart Marco Rubio discussed preparations for an upcoming summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in a call on Monday, both sides said.
The Kremlin said earlier it had “no details” about whether Zelensky would attend.
Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s three-and-a-half-year invasion have stalled since Trump and Putin met for peace talks in Alaska in August.
The two announced last week that they would meet in Budapest for a second round of talks, but it was not clear whether Zelensky — who was shut out from the previous meeting — would attend.
“If I am invited to Budapest — if it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three or, as it’s called, shuttle diplomacy, President Trump meets with Putin and President Trump meets with me — then in one format or another, we will agree,” Zelensky told reporters in remarks released on Monday.
Zelensky also criticised Hungary — Moscow’s closest partner in the EU — as a meeting place.
Western countries encouraged Ukraine to sign away its nuclear arsenal at a summit in Budapest in 1994, a defining moment in its post-Soviet history that many Ukrainians now see as a betrayal.
“Another ‘Budapest’ scenario wouldn’t be positive either,” Zelensky said.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday welcomed the planned summit but said Ukrainians and Europeans should be included.
