UKRAINE’s Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin in a rare open letter to the Russian leader Thursday, shortly after the Kremlin chief had conceded Moscow needed to strengthen its air defences following a spate of Ukrainian attacks.
US President Donald Trump, who has pushed both sides to end the conflict and boasted he could end the war within a day of taking office, said a face-to-face Putin-Zelensky meeting would be “great”, but pushed both sides to compromise.
The Kremlin said Putin had not yet been shown the letter, but that Zelensky could meet Putin in Moscow “any time”, a proposal that the Ukrainian leader preemptively ruled out in his letter.
“Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us—and you. I am proposing a meeting,” Zelensky said in the letter.
“I propose to set a clear date for such a meeting,” he said.
“Ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations,” he added.
Zelensky published the letter a day after Ukrainian drones hit Saint Petersburg, as Putin’s home city hosted a major international economic forum this week.
The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly called for a meeting with the ex-KGB spy, saying only face-to-face talks will yield an agreement on territory.
Direct addresses from Zelensky to the Russian leader are rare.
Trump, who has faced criticism for berating Zelensky in the White House last year on the one hand while inviting Putin to a summit in Alaska with the other, said he was “glad that they’re maybe talking about meeting”.
“I think we had a lot to do with it,” he told reporters in the Oval Office—the scene of his clash with the Ukrainian leader.
“I think it would be great if they met. They should — get it done.”
Months of US-led negotiations have failed to bring the sides close to an agreement, with Trump’s attention largely absorbed by the Iran war that the United States and Israel launched more than three months ago.
“They’re going to both make compromises, I suggested those compromises, and you know, we’ve had a lot to do with it,” Trump said of Ukraine and Russia, without specifying.
Russia, which invaded in 2022, has demanded Ukraine pull out of its eastern Donbas region — large parts of which Kyiv’s army still controls—as a precondition to peace talks.