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MoscowThe Putin-Zelensky meeting arouses all the bell sounds
Opinions are very shared among the Muscovites, some hoping for an end of conflict, others seeing nothing decisive in this future interview.
Between those who see in this interview a hope of peace and those who doubt it, all the nuances are audible in the Russian capital, including those who are afraid of expressing themselves.
AFPThe prospect of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, announced as having to perform in the next two weeks, aroused optimism among the Russians interviewed on Tuesday by AFP, more than three and a half years after the start of the conflict.
US leader Donald Trump, who met Putin on Friday in Alaska and Monday Zelensky in Washington, assured “starting the preparations” for such a summit of peace, although he has not yet been formally confirmed by the Kremlin. For most of the Russians met in central Moscow on Tuesday, it was time for the two leaders to negotiate directly.
“We are part of the same Slavic people”
“It is obvious that they should have met from the start, but there were those who wanted it to hang out,” said Viatchelav, 23, very close to the Kremlin. For this future civil servant, who refuses to give his name as most people who agreed to respond to AFP, an interview Putin-Zelensky “only became possible as a result of political or economic changes” in Europe, where the position of the kyiv allies was weakened by Trump’s will to end the conflict as soon as possible.
Roman, resident of Moscow and from the Stavropol region in southern Russia, omen that “the conflict will be quickly finished if such a meeting takes place”. He would have liked “that this event was held well before” because “in the meantime so many young people have died”.
“I want everything to end with peace, because we are part of the same Slavic people,” adds this 39 -year -old musician who believes that the future summit must take place “in Russia, for security reasons”. “Any contact” between Russian and Ukrainian presidents will already be a positive thing, abounds Svetlana Chvedova, 60 -year -old real estate agent met in front of the Bolchoi Theater.
“It will not end up”
Russia is currently “in good position and the result must be positive”, she wants to believe, while finding “scandalous” that Vladimir Putin, which is the subject of a mandate from the International Criminal Court, “risks arrest” if he goes to certain countries.
Other inhabitants interviewed by AFP called themselves “apolitical” and categorically refused to express themselves on the subject. For Ilia Denissov, 19-year-old student, who came to Moscow from Saint Petersburg, the former imperial capital, “following the political context does not make sense” because “everything will be decided above and without asking for our opinion”. He also struggles to believe that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky can meet. “Even if they see each other, it will be achieved because they do not tolerate each other,” he said with conviction.
Ksenia, a commercial who has his fifties, stresses that Putin repeated that he did not consider Zelensky as “legitimate”, her presidential mandate having expired in 2024 without the possibility of organizing elections due to hostilities. For her, all the territories conquered by Russia will have to return to it in any peace agreement. “People are dead for these lands, so they are for us,” she says.
