MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/. The recent meeting in Riyadh between representatives of Ukraine and its Western sponsors and several Global South countries to discuss Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called "peace formula" was merely a publicity stunt by the Kiev regime, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"There is nothing trailblazing about it. This is an absolutely old, well-proven concept of attracting political attention to the situation, not around Ukraine, I would say, because this situation really needs political attention, but to the Zelensky regime as such. <…> This was the Zelensky regime’s publicity stunt," she said in an interview with the Sputnik radio station when asked to comment on Bloomberg reports about such a secret meeting in Saudi Arabia.

"Speaking in political terms, this was part of the never-ending media barrage focused on Zelensky and all of the ideologically driven Western narratives that have been cooked up and dished out [to the Western public]," she said, adding this has little to do with finding a resolution to the Ukrainian crisis. "These are two absolutely different, if not conflicting, topics due to one simple reason: finding a solution to the situation in Ukraine requires laborious work on the political and diplomatic track, which evidently requires talks and communication," she stressed.

According to Zakharova, the hype around Zelensky is meant to "maintain the illusion of some political activity while diverting the attention of the world community away from actual processes toward a potential settlement," she noted.

According to Bloomberg, the December 2023 meeting on the so-called "Zelensky formula" yielded no results. The meeting was meant to "rally support for Kiev’s conditions for holding peace talks with Russia," Bloomberg quoted a source as saying. However, Ukraine and the Group of Seven nations continued to resist the Global South’s calls for direct communication with Russia on the matter. While Saudi Arabia, India and Turkey took part in the meeting, China, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates declined to send delegates, the agency noted.