Zelensky pushes talks restart
- President Zelensky urged a restart of US-mediated peace talks with Russia and said Ukraine is ready to negotiate almost anywhere. - He said Ukraine would accept talks in any country except Russia or Belarus and proposed Turkey as a possible venue. - Zelensky warned the Iran war has diverted global attention from Ukraine and pressed for urgency to avoid diplomatic eclipse (cnn.com) (jpost.com).
Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 22 that Ukraine wants stalled peace talks with Russia restarted and is ready to meet in almost any country. (cnn.com) (usnews.com) In his interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Zelensky said he did not expect movement soon because Washington’s attention had “shifted” to the Middle East during the Iran war. He said Ukraine could not wait until “the case of Iran” was “closed” before diplomacy on Ukraine resumed. (cnn.com 1) (cnn.com 2) Zelensky said Ukraine would accept talks anywhere except Russia or Belarus, two countries Kyiv says cannot serve as neutral ground. He floated Turkey as one option, and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on April 22 that Kyiv had asked Ankara to host a meeting between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. (jpost.com) (usnews.com) The new push comes after United States-mediated talks in Riyadh in March 2025 that were meant to test narrower ceasefire ideas, including Black Sea shipping. Those contacts did not produce a broader settlement, and Reuters reported this week that Kyiv now wants a leaders’ meeting to jolt the process. (usatoday.com) (usnews.com) Turkey has tried to position itself again as a venue. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on April 22 that Ankara was working to revive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and bring the two leaders together. (msn.com) (aljazeera.com) Moscow has not rejected a summit outright, but it set conditions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on April 22 that Putin could meet Zelensky only to finalize concrete agreements worked out first by negotiators. (kyivpost.com) (chinadailyhk.com) Zelensky tied the urgency to a wider geopolitical problem: the risk that Ukraine slips down the agenda while the United States and its allies focus on Iran. In a separate Reuters interview published April 23, he also warned that a prolonged Iran conflict could make it harder for Ukraine to secure United States missile-defense support. (cnn.com) (jpost.com) For now, Kyiv is trying to move the diplomacy back onto the calendar with a venue, a mediator and a proposed summit. Russia is saying a meeting is possible only at the end of a deal, while Zelensky is pressing to use one to restart the dealmaking itself. (usnews.com) (kyivpost.com)
