Zelenskyy asks Putin for meeting: What’s he offering, could Russia accept?

Russia and Ukraine have been holding peace talks since the war began in 2022, but with no concrete outcome.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has written an open letter to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and proposed a meeting to discuss ending Moscow’s four-year war on Kyiv.

The letter, which was published in full on the Ukrainian president’s website on Thursday and sent via diplomatic channels to Russia as well as countries including the United States, comes as Russia’s war on Ukraine continues to rage into its fifth year.

On Thursday, at least 12 people were killed and dozens injured in Russian attacks across Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities. Zelenskyy also commemorated at least 707 children killed by Russian attacks during the two countries’ more than four-year-long war.

Meanwhile, in Russian-occupied Ukraine, at least four people were killed in Ukrainian drone attacks on Thursday. Ukraine also struck an oil complex and naval base in St Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday.

Russia and Ukraine have been holding indirect peace talks since the war began in February 2022, but with little or no concrete outcomes. US President Donald Trump has also met both Putin and Zelenskyy, seeking to bring them to the negotiating table to discuss ending the war, but so far, his efforts have not borne fruit.

Will Zelenskyy’s open letter to Putin open a new path to a ceasefire?

In his letter, Zelenskyy told Putin that he has spent nearly half of his 26 years in power in Russia “waging war against Ukraine” and said Russians are now growing increasingly tired of Ukrainian missiles and drone attacks, inflation and fuel shortages.

“We can all see that Russians are finally becoming less comfortable with this reality – with the fact that the war is bringing more and more negative consequences to Russia,” he wrote.

He also told Putin that a prolonged war could threaten the Russian president’s personal position. “It is a fact of Russian history that you know well: When Russia grows tired, change comes,” he said.

“After 26 years in power, age is beginning to take its toll. And with time, the fatigue with you will only grow,” he added.

Zelenskyy also wrote that while he and the Ukrainian people are less concerned about the loss of Russian lives on the battlefield, every loss of a Ukrainian counts. “Even when the ratio of Ukrainian losses to Russian losses is one to five or one to six, it still matters greatly.

“We in Ukraine do not want a permanent war. We know very well that life without war is infinitely better. And we want to achieve that,” he said.