The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has taken a significant diplomatic step by publishing an open letter addressed directly to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Its invader for the last almost five years. In the letter, the Ukrainian president proposes starting face-to-face negotiations in a neutral third country with the aim of agreeing on the end of a conflict. In the same text he warns that, otherwise, kyiv is fully prepared to continue fighting.
This is the first public message that Zelensky addresses directly to Putin since Russia launched its large-scale invasion in 2022. The letter constitutes a profound criticism of the Russian leader’s 26 years in office and seeks to take advantage of what kyiv considers a turning point on the battlefield, where Ukrainian forces have regained some room for maneuver thanks to the improvement of their long-range attack capabilities.
However, this move coincides with an intensification of Moscow’s air campaign over Ukrainian territory, which seeks to exploit the shortage of weapons and Ukraine’s vulnerability to ballistic missile attacks.
In the text, Zelensky argues that the geopolitical scenario has changed because the United States Government, led by Republican Donald Trump, is currently “totally focused” on the conflict with Iran. It was the tycoon who, a month after returning to the White House, in February 2025, launched a negotiating process between the parties that, for now, has only borne fruit in specific exchanges of prisoners, but not even a truce. The president who said he would end this conflict “in 24 hours” has not yet done so.
Faced with this blockade, which is good for the Russian Federation to buy time, the Ukrainian leader points out that “it would be a mistake to simply wait for the war in Europe to return to the center of its attention”, insisting that the path to peace must begin on the front line itself.
To enable dialogue, kyiv has formally proposed the implementation of a total ceasefire during the course of the negotiations and has proposed an “all for all” prisoner exchange as a first step. Likewise, he has demanded the return of Ukrainian civilians and children transferred during the war, AP notes.
Zelensky categorically ruled out that the meetings would take place in Moscow or kyiv, suggesting instead traditional headquarters of international mediation such as Switzerland, Turkey or nations of the Arab world. “It is the leaders who resolve the key issues. This is how it has always been and this is how it will always be,” he said, urging Putin to set a clear date for the summit. “Don’t be afraid to take the path out of this war,” he adds.
“It is the leaders who resolve the key issues. This is how it has always been and this is how it will always be (…) Do not be afraid to take the path out of this war”
Economic pressure and military attrition
The president maintains that Russian society suffers from growing exhaustion derived from Ukrainian attacks with drones and missiles – which have had as a priority target the energy infrastructure that finances the Kremlin’s war effort – as well as inflation, fuel shortages and the need for new military mobilizations.
According to Zelensky, his country’s intelligence indicates that Moscow is evaluating plans to prolong the war until 2027 and 2028, resorting to ballistic missiles due to the stagnation of its ground campaign, while trying to further involve Belarus and destabilize the region of Transnistria, in Moldova.
The open letter also includes figures on the human cost of the conflict. The Ukrainian president assured that Russia suffered more than 30,000 casualties between dead and seriously wounded soldiers during the month of May alone, claiming to have “video confirmations” of these losses on the front. Zelensky admitted that Ukraine also continues to suffer painful casualties, despite what he described as a favorable casualty ratio for his country.
Medical personnel evacuate an injured resident in an apartment building destroyed by a Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on June 4, 2026.
The reaction of the Kremlin and Washington
The proposal has had immediate echo in international spheres. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Andrii Sybiha, confirmed through the social network
From Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that he was aware of the existence of the letter and declared that President Putin will be informed about it. Official Russian agencies stated that the Ukrainian president is welcome to meet with Putin “at any time in Moscow”, a recurring response by the Kremlin to previous calls for dialogue and which clashes with the condition of geographical neutrality demanded by kyiv.
For his part, US President Trump described the eventual meeting between the two leaders as “fantastic.” “They should get it done,” Trump said, revealing that he has suggested compromises to both sides and stressing that, to end the conflict, “both sides will have to make concessions.”
Peace with a rifle on your shoulder
And while Zelensky sent his letter (which almost seems written to the Three Wise Men, given the point at which the conflict is), Vladimir Putin gave his annual interview to representatives of the main world news agencies. The Spanish EFE, which was among them, maintains that among the main messages that the head of the Kremlin wanted to convey is the fact that they can negotiate, but without stopping their “special military operation”, as he calls the war.
Putin rejected a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, since – he argued – “to start negotiations there is no need to cease military actions.” “Better to stop the war, accepting the commitments that were made in Anchorage” (Alaska), where the Russian-American summit took place in August 2025, he added, alluding to the Russian demand that kyiv withdraw its troops from Donbas.
He also argued that Ukraine is not “really” interested in peace and only in a truce, due to Russian territorial advances in all sectors of the front, something that is denied by both kyiv and independent analysts, who consider Moscow’s spring campaign to have failed.
The Russian leader, in passing, described as “provocation” the accusations that his country is preparing to attack NATO, which he linked to the interest of Western countries in increasing spending on weapons. “This is nonsense, but not only that, but a deliberate provocation to create a threat that does not really exist and force the population of their countries to spend more money on defense (…) For what? Why would we need something like this? What sense would it make for us to attack Europe or fight with NATO?”, he stated.
“What sense would it make for us to attack Europe or fight with NATO?”
Of course, he accused Western countries of supplying kyiv with “a large number of drones” with which the enemy hits the Russian rear almost daily, especially the energy infrastructure.
Putin also assured that Russia is in “no rush” to resume dialogue with the European Union (EU), interrupted with the start of the war in Ukraine. “They have no desire to talk to Russia as a partner. But they will have to do so (…) We are willing. We must stop accusing each other. If they have the desire to work with us, let them abandon their colonial positions,” he said. While ruling out that the EU could act as a mediator in Ukraine, he once again defended former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as an interlocutor, because “he has a defined position and the courage to defend it,” when there are “few politicians in Europe with those qualities.”
In turn, he assured that Moscow is not opposed to Ukraine’s future entry into the European Union, but it is opposed to it becoming a military bloc. And he asked him to stop supplying weapons and demand that kyiv make concessions to achieve peace with Russia.
At the meeting he even had time to talk about his political future. He assured that he “still” does not think about whether he will run for re-election in 2030, something that the Constitution allows after a controversial reform approved in a referendum during the coronavirus pandemic (2020). “Indeed, the Constitution allows me to run for re-election in 2030, but it seems to me that it is early to talk about it, very soon. I am not thinking about it, I say it with complete frankness,” he said, adding that “the country faces many big and acute problems. We must solve them, without thinking about it, but about the future of Russia.”
According to polls, Putin, 73, has suffered in the last three months the biggest drop in his popularity ratings since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, due, among other things, to internet outages, economic contraction and fatigue with the conflict.
