President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Russian authorities still show no readiness for genuine negotiations. In his evening address on Aug. 31, he recalled that exactly two weeks earlier in Washington, US President Donald Trump had given the Kremlin that timeframe to decide on its willingness to meet at the level of leaders. According to Zelensky, Ukraine is ready for dialogue, but Moscow continues to bet on war.

“Ukraine is certainly ready for this. But the only thing Russia is doing is investing in further war. All their signals point to this,” Zelensky said.

As an example, he cited Vladimir Putin’s visit to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, where, according to Zelensky, the Russian president would once again “dodge and maneuver” – his favorite tactic.

Against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s lack of readiness for talks, Zelensky stressed the need to continue pressuring Russia. He emphasized that the world is calling for the war to end, yet Moscow deliberately prolongs it.

“Everyone in the world has said that fire must be stopped, everyone insisted that the war must end… The only one who wants war is Russia.”

“We expect that no one will tolerate the dragging out of this war, we count on a strong position from the US, Europe, and the G20,” Zelensky said, adding that “Russia must pay for this.”

On Thursday, Aug. 21, Trump set a two-week time frame for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow, saying “after that we’ll have to maybe take a different tack.”

It came after a cryptic Truth Social post by the US leader which likened a picture of him pointing at Putin in Alaska to a historic image of US Vice President Richard Nixon pointing at Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, which hinted that he may finally be prepared to get tough on Moscow.

On that day, he also criticized predecessor Joe Biden for “not [letting] Ukraine FIGHT BACK” against Russia, likening Ukraine to “a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense.”

On Wednesday, Trump suggested that the US may be willing to protect a potential peace settlement in Ukraine “by air,” though ruling out US boots on the ground.

Polling released on Monday showed that 66 percent of US voters support Trump’s efforts to end the war, while 52 percent of voters were satisfied with how Trump is managing negotiations, according to The Hill, suggesting the US president will not abort his plans to end the war any time soon.

For Russia’s part, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview released over the weekend that there is “no meeting planned” between Putin and Zelensky, claiming that the Russian president will only meet his Ukrainian counterpart “when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all.”

In response to Russia’s demurrals, Zelensky said that Russia is doing “everything it can” to prevent a direct meeting between the leaders, and urged leaders to adopt “really strong sanctions” against Russia if it refuses to “agree to a diplomatic solution” to the war.