President of Russia Vladimir Putin discussed with the former Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennet about the course of the war in Ukraine, confirmed the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

However, he declined to reveal the details of those talks, and in particular to refer to what the former Israeli prime minister revealed in a lengthy interview published yesterday, in which he says that President Putin promised him shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine that he would not will give the order to kill his Ukrainian colleague, Zelensky.

“Indeed, Putin and Bennett, when he was the prime minister of Israel, had a rather tense dialogue. They often talked, there were both personal communication and telephone conversations. Indeed, on the agenda, in addition to bilateral relations, was the issue of Ukraine and the issue of a special military operation. We discussed this issue for several hours,” a Kremlin spokesman told reporters, adding: “But you know that we are not in the business of disclosing the details of the talks between the heads of state. We do not want to do this now either, and therefore I will neither refute nor confirm what Mr. Bennett said” (quote from the Interfax news agency).

The then Israeli prime minister was the first Western leader to see Putin in Moscow since the outbreak of the war. The visit was part of an unsuccessful mediation attempt.

Yesterday, Naftali Bennett gave a long interview in which he stated that Vladimir Putin, during negotiations with him on March 5, 2022, promised him that he would not give an order to kill the President of Ukraine. Vladimir Zelensky.

According to Mr. Bennett, the life of a leader is the most valuable thing in a conflict. “I knew that Zelensky was in danger, he was in a shelter, the location of which was kept secret.”

That’s why he asked, three or four hours after the meeting with Bl. Putin, if the President of Russia intended to kill V. Zelensky, he continued.

Bennett said of this part of the meeting: “I asked him, what is going on? Are you planning to kill Zelensky? He replied: “I will not kill Zelensky.” Then I told him: “I want to clearly understand that you give me a promise that you will not kill Zelensky.” He replied: “I’m not going to kill Zelensky.”

After the meeting, he called the Ukrainian president right on the way from the Kremlin to the airport: “Listen, I just left the meeting, it won’t kill you,” Zelensky assured. His interlocutor asked him if he was sure. “One hundred percent,” Bennet replied.

Naftali Bennett’s statements regarding Putin’s promises not to kill Zelensky were commented on by two senior Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that “Putin promised in the past not to take Crimea, not to violate the Minsk agreements, and not to invade Ukraine, but has not delivered on any of them.” Let’s not deceive ourselves, he is a professional liar,” the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said, adding that “every time he promised that he would not do something, it was something he specifically included in his plans.”

Advisor to the President of Ukraine Mikhail Podolyak called Bennett’s claims figments of the imagination.

“From the former (leaders) there is a strange insider information about the “mediation”: that Putin assured that he would not kill,” and “the West broke off negotiations with the prospect,” wrote Podolyak on Twitter.

“However, this is a figment of the imagination. Behind the (Russian) invasion is not ‘NATO expansion’, security guarantees or sanctions, but Russia’s desire to destroy Ukraine and kill Ukrainians.

Source: BBC (Russian service)