Putin offers to take Zelenskyy's call if he calls, ahead of US-mediated peace talks

[Financial News] Vladimir Putin is willing to speak by phone if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls him, the British daily The Telegraph reported on the 1st, local time.
The newspaper reported that Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, “President Putin has never refused to talk,” adding, “I think he would of course take the call if President Zelenskyy called.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that Putin was “open to talking with everyone,” but added that “no one has called yet.”
The announcement came ahead of peace talks scheduled to be held under US mediation in Abu Dhabi, UAE, this month. The two leaders have not spoken directly or by phone since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Their last face-to-face meeting was in December 2019, at the France- and Germany-mediated “Normandy Format” talks.
Ukraine has consistently sought direct talks with Putin. Last July, Zelenskyy also sent Putin an open letter requesting a face-to-face meeting to end the war. However, a senior Ukrainian official said the Kremlin was trying to avoid a direct meeting by proposing a phone call instead of face-to-face talks.
Meanwhile, Peskov argued that the initial peace talks should take the form of trilateral consultations among Russia, the United States and Ukraine. On the participation of European countries, Ushakov said Europe’s involvement was important to reaching an agreement. However, diplomatic sources said Russia was seeking to include European countries in the negotiations to elicit conciliatory concessions on issues such as NATO expansion. Putin has long claimed that NATO expansion was the root cause of the war in Ukraine.
It was also reported that Elbridge Colby, the US under secretary of defense for policy, had asked NATO members to refrain from provocative remarks about Russia. The three Baltic states and some other European countries were reportedly sent messages urging them to tone down public criticism to avoid provoking Russia.

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