"I know that some are proposing to sit at the negotiating table with him [Putin], but I don't see anything there to negotiate," Zelensky said in an interview with the French LCI TV channel on Friday.
Earlier on Friday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States will continue to provide Ukraine with military assistance so that "if, and when diplomacy is right, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table." Sullivan later added "that moment is not right now."
"This man, he does not want peace, elseways a peace which is in line with his vision of things. But our visions are absolutely divergent, because our mentalities are divergent," Zelensky told LCI.
Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed negotiations were the only way out of the Ukraine crisis, and that he did not see a military option on the ground.
On February 24, Russia started its special military operation in Ukraine in response to calls for help from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. Russian and Ukrainian delegations have engaged in several rounds of peace talks since then, but negotiations ultimately reached an impasse.
Earlier this year, Zelensky refused to negotiate with Russia as long as President Vladimir Putin remains in office, but changed his stance later and laid out conditions for starting dialogue in a video statement released on November 8, shortly after reports emerged in US media that the Biden administration was privately encouraging Kiev to demonstrate its readiness to negotiate with Moscow.
The Kremlin has emphasized that Putin has always been and continues to remain open to negotiations on Ukraine, as evident from his attempts to initiate dialogue with the US, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) even before the start of hostilities. Moscow has expressed agreement with US statements that the resolution of the Ukraine crisis must be based on a fair and long-term peace, but at the same time, Moscow has said that it sees no prospects yet for negotiations.