Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a big signal on Saturday. He said he was ready to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky in a third country to completely end the ongoing war with Ukraine. This is the first time Putin has raised the possibility of meeting in any other country outside Russia. Speaking to the media after the Victory Day parade, Putin made it clear that he has never ruled out talks with his Ukrainian counterpart.
Putin set a condition for the meeting
Putin has also set an important condition for this meeting. He said that a meeting in a third country can take place only when a complete and long-lasting peace agreement is finalized between the two countries. According to Putin, this meeting will be only for signing the agreement and not for talks. He said that if the Ukrainian side wants to meet, they can also come to Moscow. Putin made it clear that the meeting should be the last step in any agreement, not the beginning of negotiations.
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Why did Putin give the example of Minsk agreements?
The Russian President stressed that initial talks should be conducted by experts. Giving the example of the old ‘Minsk Agreements’, he said that such discussions often go on for hours but they yield no results. The Minsk agreements took place in Belarus in 2014 and 2015. Their aim was to stop violence in the Donbass region of Ukraine, but they had failed. Putin wants this time that the experts should clarify everything in advance, so that the President meets only to attend the ceremony or to sign the signatures.
The war began in February 2022 and is now in its fifth year. Earlier in September 2025 also, Putin had expressed his desire to meet Zelensky after his visit to China. Then he had said that the meeting could be held in Moscow, provided it was within the constitutional framework of Ukraine and it yielded a concrete result. Now Putin’s suggestion to meet outside Russia could open a new path towards peace.
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