Ukraine will participate in negotiations, Kremlin spokesman says

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Ukraine "will of course, in one way or another, participate in the negotiations."

"There will be a bilateral Russian-American track of that dialogue and a track that will be related to the involvement of Ukraine," Peskov was quoted as saying.

But there will be a separate US-Russia channel, he said in comments carried by the state news agency TASS.

Another agency, Interfax, quoted Peskov as saying that preparation for a meeting between the two leaders could take up to several months.

But both sides agree that the Saudi capital of Riyadh is a suitable location, he added.

His statement comes after President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine will not accept any peace agreement reached between the US and Russia in Ukraine's absence.

Speaking to reporters about his phone call with Donald Trump - which came after the US president's call with Vladimir Putin - he said the country needed to be at the negotiating table.

He said he did not discuss NATO membership in the call with Trump, but he knows the US does not want Ukraine to join the defense alliance.

"Today it is important that everything does not go according to Putin's plan, in which he wants to do everything to make his bilateral negotiations [with the US]," the Ukrainian leader said.

Trump hopes a peace deal will be reached, but he appears to have made concessions to Putin before talks begin, Sky News reports.

The US president said last night that it was "impractical" for Ukraine to join NATO and that it was unlikely to return all of its occupied land. /Telegraph/