Zelensky Proposes Face-to-Face Putin Meeting in Rare Open Letter to Russian Leader
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a rare open letter to the Russian leader, shortly after a hypersonic missile strike on Kyiv that Zelensky described as evidence Russia is “genuinely deranged”. The direct-engagement proposal is the structural shift in the Ukrainian diplomatic posture; previous Zelensky engagement efforts have gone through Trump and European intermediaries. The Russian response to the letter has not been published.
The Zelensky-Putin direct meeting proposal is the most significant Ukrainian diplomatic move since the Ukrainian peace-summit track collapsed in mid-2024. The Russian rejection of US-pushed Zelensky-Putin meeting in earlier rounds has been the principal Kremlin position; whether Putin’s response to Zelensky’s open letter differs is the open question. The proposal lands during the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) Putin is hosting; ISW reports the Russian ultranationalist community presented extreme scenarios for Russia’s military future at SPIEF, indicating Kremlin domestic pressure to escalate rather than negotiate. Ukrainian deep-strike operations against St Petersburg infrastructure during the forum are calibrated to keep Russia under pressure while the diplomatic proposal is on the table.