Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Miami, in an interview published on Saturday, as efforts to end the conflict intensify.
Asked by Deutsche Welle whether he would meet Putin at the December gathering if the two leaders were invited, he replied: "Yes, of course. We have to come. We have to meet, talk and make decisions."
"It's not about words. What I say to him or what he wants to say to me, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Only the result matters. The result matters. That's it."
Washington recently sought to boost long-delayed efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fifth year, with US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visiting Moscow and Kiev last weekend.
Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump also discussed the war last week in what the Kremlin called an "extremely frank" and constructive phone conversation that lasted an hour.
Zelensky said in an interview with DW on Friday that the visit of Witkoff and Kushner was a "good signal" and that it was important for the two to visit Kiev as well as Moscow.
"It's a tribute to our people."
The United States this year chairs the Group of 20 major economies, which includes 19 countries plus the EU and the African Union.
In early September, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov was welcomed to the G20 meeting in North Carolina, causing discomfort among Ukraine's European allies.
And a Russian diplomat said Saturday that Moscow would send some representatives to the G20 energy meeting in Houston next week.
