The bilateral meeting is one commitment U.S. President Donald Trump was able to extract from Moscow after his summit with Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15.
“In all honesty, the signals coming from Russia right now are, frankly, indecent,” Zelenskyy said in his evening video address.
“They are trying to get out of the obligation to hold a meeting. They don’t want to end this war.”
He added that Russian forces continue to launch air strikes against Ukrainian cities and intense assaults along the front. He pointed to the Aug. 21 strike on Mukachevo, Zakarpattia Oblast, which damaged a plant owned by the U.S. electronics manufacturer Flex.
Zelenskyy reiterated that Russia’s military aggression persists even as the world awaits clear answers on how to negotiate a peace.
“There are two formats in which real progress can be made,” the president continued.
“These are leader-level formats: a bilateral format between Ukraine and Russia, and a trilateral format among Ukraine, the United States, and Russia. We discussed this in Washington. Putin mentioned it during a call with President Trump.”
Earlier, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Putin, in an Aug. 18 phone call with Trump, confirmed his readiness to meet with Zelenskyy. Although the Kremlin has not officially agreed, a senior U.S. administration official said the meeting could take place within the next two weeks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, commenting on the possibility of a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting, said the talks remain a “very distant possibility.”