Russia said Tuesday that any deal on Ukraine should ensure its own security and that of Russians in Ukraine, as Kyiv’s allies met to discuss possible peace talks, after suggestions that Volodymyr Zelensky could sit down with Vladimir Putin.

Hopes of a breakthrough rose when the Ukrainian president and European leaders met in Washington on Monday with US President Donald Trump, who said he had also spoken by phone with his Russian counterpart.

But Russia warned that any solution of the war in Ukraine must respect “Russia’s security interests”, with its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov adding that any meeting between the leaders “must be prepared very thoroughly”.

Face-to-face talks between Zelensky and Putin would be their first since Russia’s brutal invasion three-and-a-half years ago.

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