LONDON — The presidents of Ukraine and Russia “haven’t been precisely greatest pals,” U.S. President Donald Trump stated earlier this week, as he pushed for an in-person assembly that he says he hopes will lay the groundwork for an finish to Moscow’s three-and-a-half-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin final met in 2019, for ill-fated negotiations on ending the simmering battle sparked by Russia’s seizure of Crimea and fomentation of a separatist rise up in jap Ukraine in 2014.
The 2019 assembly, which occurred shortly after Zelenskyy gained energy on a populist wave, ended with commitments to implement “all obligatory ceasefire help measures” earlier than the tip of that yr and to launch all prisoners of struggle.
Trump’s seemingly tongue-in-cheek analysis of the strained relationship between the 2 leaders belies the poisonous impact of greater than a decade of Russian aggression in opposition to its neighbor.
And whereas the U.S. president has instructed the proposed sit-down is the important thing results of his personal latest conferences with Putin and Zelenskyy, it’s nonetheless removed from sure Putin will truly do it, regardless of the White Home’s insistence he has agreed.
Almost six years on from their final assembly, Putin and Zelenskyy are locked in a struggle that each appear to think about existential. Trump’s return to workplace has revived dormant peace efforts, however the opponents are nonetheless far aside on key points.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, August 18, 2025 and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, August 15, 2025.
Mandel Ngan/AFP through Getty Photos
Merely getting the 2 presidents in a room collectively can be a serious achievement, however — with tons of of 1000’s lifeless and the futures of each international locations on the road — may not produce a optimistic outcome.
Nonetheless, the White Home has instructed {that a} bilateral assembly between Zelenskyy and Putin would possibly assist bridge the gulf. Trump seems optimistic recent off a summit with Putin in Alaska on Friday, adopted by White Home conferences with Zelenskyy and a gaggle of European leaders on Monday.
“I hope President Putin goes to be good, and if he isn’t, it should be a tough scenario,” Trump stated on Tuesday. “And I hope that Zelenskyy, President Zelenskyy, will do what he has to do. He has to indicate some flexibility additionally,” Trump added.
Regardless of Trump’s positivity, the assembly is way from assured. Putin has repeatedly refused to satisfy with Zelenskyy through the battle, having persistently sought to undermine the Ukrainian president’s legitimacy. Russian officers not often use Zelenskyy’s title, preferring to check with “the Kyiv regime.”
Moscow is even accused by Ukraine of getting dispatched kill groups to focus on Zelenskyy through the opening weeks of the 2022 invasion. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak stated Zelenskyy survived greater than a dozen assassination makes an attempt within the first yr of the full-scale invasion.
Russian officers have been removed from effusive of their feedback on the proposed bilateral assembly between Putin and Zelenskyy — and the trilateral assembly involving Trump that the U.S. president has proposed as a follow-on.
“We’re not rejecting any types of work — neither bilateral nor trilateral,” Russian Overseas Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on Tuesday, as quoted by the state-run Tass information company.
Any assembly must be ready “step-by-step, steadily, ranging from the knowledgeable stage after which going by means of all the required phases with a view to put together the summits,” Lavrov reportedly added.
“That provides a number of room for hypothesis,” Boris Bondarev — who labored for the Russian everlasting mission to the United Nations Workplace in Geneva till he resigned in 2022 in opposition to Putin’s struggle on Ukraine — advised ABC Information of the official Russian statements.
“Western diplomacy first says out loud what they will do, so their opponent is prepared,” he added. “Russians would by no means do such a factor.”
A Ukrainian soldier writes a message on a howitzer shell to fireplace in direction of Russian positions on the entrance line close to Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 13, 2025.
Andrii Marienko/AP
The absence of Kremlin affirmation has been interpreted by some in Ukraine as an indication that Putin is not going to comply with assembly Zelenskyy.
A supply near the Ukrainian authorities, who requested anonymity as they weren’t approved to talk publicly, advised ABC Information that the Ukrainians “proceed to be very, very skeptical — that is an understatement — of Putin and the Russians by way of whether or not they are going to transfer ahead.”
“As a result of the observe document is that Putin has stated ‘no’ to every little thing,” the supply added. “So, there may be skepticism that he’ll comply with this. However they’ve carried out their half proper. They’ve stated ‘sure’ to every little thing, they have been constructive, they’ve demonstrated to Trump that they honestly need to get to peace. And once more, they really feel that Trump sees that and understands that.”
Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chair of the physique’s international affairs committee, advised ABC Information, “I doubt that Putin will agree to satisfy with Zelenskyy,”
“Putin is afraid of Zelenskyy,” he added. “He understands that the image will appear to be an outdated dictator, struggle legal on the one hand, and a younger and courageous democratic struggle chief however.”
“To keep away from a trilateral assembly, Putin will likely be placing ahead completely different absurd calls for,” Merezhko stated. “He would possibly insist on elections in Ukraine or one thing. Most definitely it will likely be shuttle diplomacy on the stage of ministers of international affairs.”
The supply near the federal government stated many pitfalls stay.
“It may very well be that possibly we’re all unsuitable and Putin accepts the assembly, however maintains unacceptable calls for by way of what safety ensures are,” they stated.
“There are such a lot of potential Russian ‘no’s alongside the way in which, even when they fulfill Trump with this assembly,” they added.
Oleg Ignatov, the Disaster Group suppose tank’s senior analyst for Russia, advised ABC Information he believes a gathering between the 2 leaders is feasible, however that it will not be simple to drag off.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend a press convention following their assembly to barter an finish to the struggle in Ukraine, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, in Anchorage, Alaska, August 15, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
“I do not suppose it is an issue for Putin,” Ignatov stated.
“He stated that Zelenskyy, from his viewpoint, isn’t a legit chief,” Ignatov continued. “It does not imply that they can not negotiate with Zelenskyy. The issue may very well be with signing any paperwork.”
The proposed assembly doesn’t but actually have a location. Among the many doable venues touted up to now are Switzerland — instructed by French President Emmanuel Macron — and the Hungarian capital Budapest, instructed by Hungarian Overseas Minister Peter Szijjarto. Putin even reportedly provided Moscow as a venue.
If a gathering does go forward, the placement will likely be topic to main logistical and safety preparations, whereas diplomatic groups work on the technique and paperwork to underpin the negotiations.
“With regular preparations we discuss months,” Ignatov stated. “We’re not in a standard scenario. Perhaps if Trump pushes, [Putin] might agree, but it surely does not imply that they succeed.”
The chasm between the Ukrainian and Russian camps on key points — prime amongst them territorial questions and the form of post-war Western safety ensures for Ukraine — stays.
The peace memorandums drafted by Kyiv and Moscow earlier this yr “are too completely different, and we’ve not seen some other texts,” Ignatov stated.
Putin’s 2021 screed — “On the historic unity of Russians and Ukrainians” — set out the ideological foundations of his struggle in Ukraine.
The nation, he asserted, is an “synthetic” nation, with its individuals forcibly break up from the collective descendants of the primary jap Slavic state — the late ninth century Kyivan Rus — by inside radicals and international meddling. Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, Putin claimed, collectively type a single “triune nation.”
For all of the Kremlin’s obvious evasiveness, Putin’s place on Ukraine has not modified, Bondarev stated. “They are saying we would like Ukraine, and they’re constant on this,” he defined.
This handout {photograph} taken and launched by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Aug. 18, 2025, exhibits a Ukrainian emergency employee in motion following an air assault in Sumy, Ukraine.
Handout/UKRAINIAN EMERGENCY SERVICE/AFP
Already the narrative on the continued struggle has shifted dramatically, Bondarev continued. Now not do U.S. officers discuss of backing Ukraine “for so long as it takes,” he stated, nor do they espouse their dedication to Ukrainian territorial integrity per its internationally-recognized 1991 borders or its eventual accession to NATO.
Forward of his assembly with Zelenskyy on Monday, for instance, Trump posted to social media explicitly ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine and suggesting Kyiv abandon any hope of regaining Crimea. The president has additionally hinted that he would possibly stroll away from peace efforts if he can’t obtain a breakthrough.
Regardless of their stauncher backing for Kyiv, European leaders additionally seem cautious of antagonizing the president, whereas nonetheless defending Ukraine’s calls for for a ceasefire, safety ensures and its territorial integrity.
If Putin does decide to a gathering, it will be seen by many as “greater than a climbdown,” Pavel Luzin, a Russian political analyst at The Fletcher Faculty of Regulation and Diplomacy at Tufts College, advised ABC Information.
“There can be a serious ideological problem for all of the Russian management,” Luzin stated. “They deny that Ukraine is an enemy equal to them — they nonetheless name the Armed Forces of Ukraine ‘Nazi formations,’ ‘combatants’ and so forth. And so they can’t agree that Ukraine is a sovereign and unbiased state.”
In 2019, Luzin stated, “the Russian delegation was positive that Zelenskyy would signal a sort of final Ukrainian capitulation. In the event that they had been to satisfy in 2025 and Ukraine was to not capitulate, that will harm all of the ideological framework of contemporary Russia.”
Bondarev concurred. A face-to-face assembly that ends and not using a Ukrainian give up “will likely be a humiliation” for Putin, he stated, “as a result of he met with somebody who’s seen by all of his individuals as somebody inferior and he misplaced, as a result of he was not in a position to press Zelenskyy into capitulation.”
Whereas the Russian chief doesn’t need to unnecessarily antagonize Trump, Bondarev added, “He does not need to negotiate with Zelenskyy, as a result of Zelenskyy isn’t an equal for him.”
Ukraine and its Western backers have been vociferous in pushing again on Putin’s narrative, although Trump has at instances unsettled Kyiv and European leaders by aligning with Russian speaking factors casting doubt on Zelenskyy’s legitimacy.
“Putin’s narrative about Ukraine as a synthetic nation and the proxy of the Western international locations implies that there isn’t any level in speaking to Zelenskyy or some other Ukrainian consultant,” Bondarev stated.
“It might imply that Zelenskyy or the Ukrainian authorities has its company, and so they can resolve.”
A person locations a flag at a makeshift memorial to fallen Ukrainian troops at Independence Sq. in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 20, 2025.
Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
