Israel PM Bennett holds talks with Russian President Putin & Ukraine President Zelensky amid crisis

all right so let's start with the big story that we are tracking on beyond after this hour where in a bit of a surprise visit the israeli prime minister naftali bennett reportedly held talks with the russian president vladimir putin at the kremlin he also next spoke with the ukrainian president ronaldo zolensky on the phone before flying off to have a meeting with the german chancellor olaf scholz now this bit of diplomatic efforts have come on the 11th day of russia's invasion into ukraine the bennett reportedly offered to mediate in the crisis he had a two and a half hour in-person meeting with putin of the kremlin and remember this of course has been putin's first in-person meeting with a foreign leader since the invasion began in february the talks of course came after ukraine urged the state of israel to hold the dialogue with russia the kremlin has said that different aspects of the situation in ukraine are to be discussed during the meeting after the first in person talks with putin bennett then reportedly spoke with vladimir zelinski over the phone the nathalie bennett has been treading very cautiously in the face of this conflict he aims to preserve the very delicate security cooperation that the state of israel has with russia remember russia of course has got a large military presence in israel's northern neighbours syria unlike the west the state of israel has not condemned the invasion or has slapped russia with sanctions instead the country is stressing upon its close relations with both moscow and kiev and after wrapping up the meeting in moscow bennett is of course headed to berlin to hold talks with german chancellor olaf shawn's the french president emmanuel macron's office has said that interestingly emmanuel macron had spoken to naftali bennett before he left for moscow and we earlier spoke with our correspondent jody cohen who joined us from jerusalem with more updates in terms of what this meeting between naftali bennett and vladimir putin is likely to mean well according to a statement by israel's prime minister's office the flight took off on saturday morning after the two leaders spoke on wednesday now the timing is significant because saturday is the jewish sabbath which is the day of rest the prime minister as an orthodox stew would only travel on saturday for a life-saving purpose and clearly in the case of ukraine he thought this this would be and this suggests that he wants to play a mediating role um which was requested actually by ukrainian president zelinski and prime minister bennett offered president putin and that this offer wasn't rejected um also significant is the fact that an israeli diplomatic source has said that the meeting was coordinated in advance with the u.s germany and france um in continuous dialogue with ukraine so the meeting took place at the kremlin and the key focus appears to be on the ukraine war according to kremlin spokesman dmitry peskov the two leaders discussed the situation around ukraine according to reports um prime minister bennett also spoke about the situation of israelis and jewish communities as a result of the conflict and they also discussed the ongoing iran nuclear talks in vienna which russia is a signatory to earlier saturday russia indicated that before backing the iran deal it would need guarantees from the us and cited western sanctions against russia so it appears progress in the iranian nuclear talks and the ukraine russia war could now potentially be linked beyond is now available in your country download the app now and get all the news on the move

Channel: WION

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Id: qSJQRk4_ZnE

Length: 3min 59sec (239 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 05 2022