Kremlin: Zelensky should keep in mind the fact that Putin and Russia exist

Russia should "find someone" to negotiate and then come up with proposals, Ukrainian President Zelensky said in Davos. In response, the Kremlin advised Zelensky to understand quickly that "Russia and Putin exist and will exist.”

Putin's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who doubted in his speech at a forum in Davos that Vladimir Putin was alive.

"Clearly, Russia and Putin are a big problem for both Ukraine and Zelensky. It is also clear that purely psychologically, Mr. Zelensky would prefer that neither Russia nor Putin exist. Yet, the sooner the Ukrainian regime realises that Russia and Putin exist and will exist, the sooner they  give up on everything anti-Russian, the better it is for a country like Ukraine," Peskov told reporters on January 19.

The sooner Kyiv shows readiness to take Russia's demands into account, the sooner everything will end, and the sooner the people of Ukraine will begin to recover from the tragedy that the Kyiv regime has staged, Dmitry Peskov said adding that Russia would achieve its goals this way or another.

Earlier on January 19, speaking via video link in Davos, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that he would not hold talks with Russia, because "he does not understand with whom to negotiate and what." According to Zelensky, Russia should "find someone” for negotiations before putting forward any suggestions.

In March 2022, immediately after the start of the Russian special operation, Zelensky offered Putin a personal meeting for negotiations. The Kremlin then called it possible, but said that the delegations of the two countries must do the work so that the leaders of the two countries could meet "for the sake of results."

Russia and Ukraine held negotiations at the level of delegations throughout the spring of 2022. However, the talks were suspended in May.

Moscow has repeatedly expressed its readiness to continue them. After the inclusion of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions into Russia, Zelensky signed a decree refusing to negotiate with Russia with Putin being its president. At the same time, he later admitted a possibility of dialogue with Moscow on terms of the "peace formula”, which provided for the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Kyiv's conditions "unrealistic", presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the Ukrainian authorities should take into account the realities, namely the emergence of new subjects in Russia.