Ukraine pushes for summit

Ukraine is pressing for a face-to-face meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin after lower-level peace contacts failed to produce a broader ceasefire. (apnews.com) Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Tuesday that Kyiv sees a leaders’ summit as a way to “jolt” negotiations that have been backed by the United States. The proposal came as Russia’s full-scale invasion moved into its fifth year. (apnews.com) The Kremlin did not reject the idea outright, but spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin would meet Zelenskyy only to finalize agreements that negotiators had already prepared. Peskov said the point of any meeting must be “productive,” leaving Moscow in control of when a summit could happen. (globalbankingandfinance.com) That gap reflects the basic dispute in the diplomacy. Kyiv wants a top-level meeting to break deadlock; Moscow says a summit can come only after the deadlock is already broken. (apnews.com; globalbankingandfinance.com) The push comes after weeks of uneven U.S.-brokered contacts that have not produced a full truce. Reuters reported on April 4 that Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner could visit Kyiv in April as part of an effort to revive talks that had stalled after war in the Gulf disrupted diplomacy. (usnews.com) Fighting has kept undercutting the talks. On Wednesday, Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone hit a residential building deep inside Russia and killed a woman and a child; Reuters could not independently verify the claim. (apnews.com) Earlier this month, Russian officials said Ukrainian drone strikes killed five civilians, including a 12-year-old boy and his parents, in the Vladimir region and in Russian-controlled parts of southern Ukraine. Reuters said it could not independently verify those statements, and Ukrainian officials accused Russia of carrying out deadly attacks of its own. (usnews.com) Ukraine has argued for direct leader-to-leader contact before. In February, Kyiv Post reported that Zelenskyy was open to talks with Putin on territory, a ceasefire and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, while insisting on security guarantees and a monitored truce. (kyivpost.com) For now, both sides are still describing a summit as possible while attaching opposite conditions to it. That leaves the next move where it has been for months: on the battlefield, in back-channel talks, and with mediators trying to turn partial contacts into terms both presidents would actually sign. (apnews.com; globalbankingandfinance.com)