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The ambitious plans for a bilateral summit between Ukraine Zelensky and Russia Vladimir Putin appears to be delayed, only a few days after Donald Trump expressed confidence that such a meeting could take place within weeks.
The location from Geneva and Vienna to Budapest or Istanbul were justified as possible places. Putin and Zelensky have not been in the same room since 2019, three years before Russia launched a full -scale invasion of Ukraine.
The US president said he “started agreements” at the summit, indicating that on Monday he believed that Putin had agreed to him by phone.
This may have been an optimistic reading of the conversation.
Almost immediately the Kremlin shared his own, more vague version of the exchange. Trump and Putin discussed “the possibility of raising the level of representatives,” said Assistant Yuri Ushakov – and that may simply mean that ministers, not messengers, can participate in the negotiations.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the meeting could take place “over the next two weeks”. But he warned: “We do not know whether the Russian president will attend such a top,” and he pushed Putin to “persuade”.
Trump mentioned the “rude” situation for Russia, Putin should not cooperate in the peace process, but refused to be more specific.
Now that the diplomatic whirlwind dies, the likelihood of a meeting between Putin and Zelensky seems to be further diminishing.
Moscow seems to be open to participate in bilateral talks between the two presidents. In reality, however, the prerequisites for the meeting will almost certainly prove unacceptable to the Ukrainian side.
This week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Putin was ready to meet with Zelensky, provided that all the “issues” required by the consideration “at the highest level”. This vague, but uncompromising language was used by the Kremlin in the past to confront a Ukrainian proposal for a bilateral meeting.
Last week, Trump’s Messenger Steve Witcoof said that Russia had adopted security guarantees for Ukraine, calling it a “very significant step”.
But now it seems that these guarantees will be modeled for those who first sailed by Moscow and rejected by Kiev in 2022, in which Russia will join a group of countries that have veto power over military intervention in defense of Ukraine.
This proposal will also ban the Western troops located in Ukraine, leaving it effectively in the event of a fresh Russian invasion. On Thursday, Lavrov said that any other security basis would be a “absolutely useless enterprise”.
Meanwhile, Zelensky stated that any meeting with Putin should come after Kiev’s allies agreed to the security guarantee – which undoubtedly provides support for Western forces and exclude Russia, which makes it such a kind that Moscow never accepts.
Because everything stands, neither Russia nor Ukraine seems ready to shift from their durable positions – and everyone accuses others of undermining efforts to achieve a peaceful deal.
The possibility of Putin-Zelensky summit may seem remote at the moment, but this has not stopped the assumption of where it can happen.
After the diplomatic madness, which followed the negotiations in the White House, Budapest was referred to as a place for a potential meeting, and the Americans say they are in favor of it.
“They can come to Hungary at any time,” said Hungary Foreign Minister Peter Sidiaart. “Give us an hour in advance, and we are ready to guarantee fair, decent, safe and equal conditions for everyone in Hungary.”
But not everyone sees the capital of Hungary as a rather neutral land. Prime Minister Victor Orban is one of the few European leaders who maintained ties with Putin. He also blocked funding for Ukraine and pledged to veto Ukrainian EU membership.
“We will be honest, Budapest did not support us,” Zelensky said on Thursday. “I am not saying that Orban’s policy was against Ukraine, but it was against the support of Ukraine,” he told reporters, adding that the negotiations in Budapest would be “difficult”.
On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk outlined on X that he opposed the hosting negotiations in Budapest. The city became the site of the summit in 1994, which resulted in its share of the Soviet nuclear arsenal in return for the guarantee of Russia’s security. Later, they were meaningless as a result of the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full -scale invasion in 2022.
“Maybe I’m superstitious, but this time I would try to find another place,” Tusk threw.
France Emanuel Macron raised the possibility of a summit in Switzerland-new European country with a long history of talks with high rates. Zelensky also lost Vienna, a place of several international organizations.
In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Putin, which claims that war in Ukraine, but Switzerland and Austria – both the ICC subscribers said they would give immunity to the Russian president when he came to peace talks.
Turkey also swam as an option.
There is a precedent, since since April, three rounds of direct negotiations have been held in Istanbul at the delegation level between Ukraine and Russia, although they have not been able to lead to significant progress against the ceasefire for the agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war.
The Vatican and Saudi Arabia were also mentioned by Ukraine as many places as possible. The Vatican has long made a suitable place, while Saudi Arabia had previously held the exchanges of prisoners between Kiev and Moscow.
In the distance from the high -level diplomacy, the war does not show signs of decline.
On Thursday, Ukraine stated that its armed forces impressed the refineries in the Russian region of Rostov, which bordered on the eastern regions of the Donbass of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia has started its largest wave in Ukraine in a few weeks, killing one person and injuring many more.
“Moscow still has no signal that they will really participate in significant negotiations and stop this war,” Zelensky said in social media. “Pressure is needed.”
