MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky is unlikely to take place before the end of August because it requires careful preparation, Nikolay Azarov, who served as Ukraine’s prime minister in 2010-2014, told TASS.

"A meeting can certainly happen but not so soon, because it needs to be prepared," he said, when asked if such a meeting could be held before the end of the month.

According to Azarov, the Russian leadership certainly won’t accept the position Zelensky holds at the moment. The ex-Ukrainian prime minister pointed to a number of questions that arose from US President Donald Trump’s meetings with Zelensky and European leaders. "What kind of security guarantees are they talking about, announcing plans to arm the Kiev regime to the teeth and provide it with huge amounts of money? They are going to allocate $100 billion this year alone, so does it lead to peace?" Azarov said.

"It’s hard for me to say if it’s possible to change positions in a week in order to reach some kind of agreement," he added. "The negotiating team that will work to prepare the bilateral meeting will have to find some common ground," the ex-Ukrainian prime minister concluded.

On August 15, Putin and Trump held a meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. The meeting, which lasted about three hours, was focused on resolving the Ukraine conflict. On August 18, Trump hosted Zelensky and a number of European leaders at the White House. The US president also called up Putin. According to Kremlin Aide Yury Ushakov, their conversation lasted about 40 minutes. After that, Trump announced that he had begun arranging a meeting between Putin and Zelensky.