Moscow is still ready to discuss pressing issues with the leaders of the other four permanent UN Security Council members, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. However, a summit cannot be expected under the current circumstances, he added.
The idea of a meeting between the leaders of Russia, the US, UK, China, and France was first put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2020. At the time, Putin said he wished to discuss various international issues with the other leaders. The initiative was positively received at first by all four, but the US and its allies were reportedly reluctant to make it happen, according to TASS.
In 2021, Putin stated that he still expected the summit to take place. In February 2022, roughly a week before hostilities between Kiev and Moscow broke out, Peskov stated that the Russian leader’s initiative was still on the table. He also said the rising tensions in Europe at the time would have been one of the major issues on the agenda if the meeting took place. “This topic should be discussed at such a high level,” the Kremlin spokesman said at the time.
Speaking to Russian media outlet Izvestia on Wednesday, Peskov said “the president remains open to contacts but the prospect of such a meeting [looks] unrealistic for known reasons.”
Relations between Russia and the US and its Western allies have seen a sharp downturn over the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has described it as a proxy war waged by the West, and has accused Washington and its allies of intentional escalation. The US has repeatedly spoken about the need to weaken Russia, with President Joe Biden vowing that Moscow would never win against Kiev.
The US, France, and the UK are among Kiev’s major backers, supplying Ukraine with military hardware and ammunition.
Contacts between the leaders of Western nations and Russia have also virtually ceased over the course of the conflict. Putin last talked to Biden by phone in February 2022, before the hostilities broke out. Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron maintained contact by phone over the early months of the conflict, but this also ceased by the end of 2022.