Russian President Vladimir Putin poured cold water on the prospect of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in person, arguing there is no reason to have diplomatic talks to potentially end the Russia-Ukraine war.

“I don’t see any point for now,” Putin said Friday at Russia’s annual economic forum in St. Petersburg.

“Was it a way to create the conditions for a face-to-face meeting or a way not to set up a face-to-face meeting? I think it was the second,” the Russian leader said, according to the BBC.

Putin’s comments came after Zelensky wrote an open letter to the Russian president, requesting a meeting between the two leaders in a third-party country to hammer out a potential end to the war in Eastern Europe that has crossed into its fifth year.

“We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention,” Zelensky wrote in the letter. “Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you.”

The Russian president characterized the note as “rude.”

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