Zelenskyy proposes face-to-face meeting with Putin

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sent Vladimir Putin an open letter proposing a face-to-face meeting to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, according to Euronews. Zelenskyy said he was ready for a “full ceasefire” and asked Putin to set a clear date for talks, in what the outlet describes as the first time the Ukrainian leader has written directly to the Russian president since the 2022 invasion.

The letter is pitched as a direct appeal over the heads of negotiating teams that have become part of the war’s machinery: ministries, security services and allied capitals that can keep a conflict supplied and explained even when battlefield movement slows. Zelenskyy frames the offer as a choice that now sits personally with Putin, arguing that the Kremlin’s public justifications—NATO, geopolitics, language—are pretexts rather than causes. He also ties diplomacy to military signalling, writing that Ukrainian long-range drones reached the opening of Putin’s forum in St Petersburg and that the distance flown is “not the limit” of Ukraine’s capabilities.

That combination—ceasefire language paired with a reminder of strike reach—functions as a test of what Moscow is willing to pay to keep the war going. Zelenskyy writes that Ukraine “cares” about its casualties and calls every loss painful, while also citing claimed loss ratios of one Ukrainian to five or six Russians, a detail aimed at showing endurance rather than collapse. He argues that Ukraine does not want a permanent war and says he believes most Russians would respond positively to ending it, an attempt to separate Russian society from the Kremlin’s decision-making.

The Kremlin’s initial response, as reported by Euronews, was both open-ended and noncommittal. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Zelenskyy was welcome to meet Putin in Moscow “any time,” while also saying Putin had not yet been shown the letter as of Thursday evening. The gap between “any time” and “hasn’t seen it” is where wars often live: in the layers of gatekeeping that allow leaders to signal flexibility without committing to a process or a venue.

Zelenskyy’s office said the letter was sent to Moscow and shared with Kyiv’s partners, including the United States. The proposal now exists as a document that allies can cite, and that Russia can ignore, accept, or delay—each option carrying different costs.

For now, the only concrete detail is that Ukraine has asked for a date. Russia’s public line is that the invitation is open, even as the letter itself sits somewhere in the Kremlin’s internal routing.