Ukraine Asks Turkey to Host Zelensky-Putin Summit as Peace Talks Stall

Ukraine has asked Turkey to host a direct summit between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kyiv's top diplomat confirmed on Wednesday, as efforts to end the more than four-year war hit a new low.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha made the disclosure on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, saying Ukraine had approached Ankara specifically — and signaled it would welcome any neutral capital prepared to stage the meeting. "We addressed the Turks specifically," Sybiha told reporters. "But if another capital, besides Moscow and Belarus, organizes such a meeting, we will go."

Turkey has not yet responded to the proposal. Ankara's silence is telling: while President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described Turkey as the "ideal host" for future Russia-Ukraine-US talks and reaffirmed that readiness during a meeting with Zelensky in Istanbul earlier this month, committing to a presidential-level summit carries significant political risk if Moscow refuses to send Putin.

The Kremlin's position remains unchanged. Russia has repeatedly insisted that any meeting between the two leaders can only take place in Moscow — a condition Zelensky has flatly rejected. The Ukrainian leader invited Putin to Kyiv in January 2026 "if he dares," and has since floated the Middle East, Europe, and the United States as alternative venues. Moscow has not engaged with any of them.

The push for a Turkish venue comes after a cascade of diplomatic failures. Three rounds of US-brokered talks — held in the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland between late January and February 2026 — ended without result. A fourth round, scheduled for early March in the UAE, was shelved when American attention pivoted to the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. Direct negotiations have effectively stalled ever since.

Against that backdrop, prisoner exchanges have become the conflict's only functioning diplomatic channel. On April 11, Ukraine and Russia swapped 175 prisoners of war each, alongside seven Ukrainian civilians, in a deal mediated by the UAE. Frontline fighting, meanwhile, has not paused: the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported at least a dozen civilians killed and more than 140 injured in the four days following a Russian-declared Easter truce, with Donetsk, Kherson, and Sumy hardest hit.

Turkey's appeal as a mediator rests on a rare combination of assets. It is a NATO ally that has sold Bayraktar drones to Ukraine yet has declined to join Western sanctions against Russia and remains heavily dependent on Russian energy. That balance has allowed Ankara to keep channels open with both sides throughout the war. Turkey's most tangible achievement was brokering the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative — a landmark deal, co-signed with the United Nations, that kept Ukrainian grain moving through Black Sea ports. Erdogan has since proposed deploying Turkish peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, an idea Russia has not formally rejected, unlike its blanket opposition to NATO forces on Ukrainian soil.

Critics, however, question Ankara's reliability. Turkey has faced accusations of supplying dual-use materials to Russia, facilitating sanctions evasion, and dragging its feet on Finland and Sweden's NATO accession. Analysts at the Hudson Institute warn that Turkey's mediation ambitions are driven as much by its own strategic interests — expanded Black Sea influence, NATO leverage, energy diversification — as by any commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty.

Ukraine's proposal is nonetheless diplomatically shrewd. By publicly naming Turkey and signaling openness to any neutral venue, Kyiv places the burden of intransigence squarely on Moscow. If Russia again refuses a neutral setting, it is Russia — not Ukraine — that is seen to be blocking talks. That optics calculation may matter more than the immediate prospect of a summit.

Few analysts expect a breakthrough soon. Russia, which Putin declared in June 2025 had a claim over "all of Ukraine," believes time and battlefield momentum are on its side. The United States — the one actor with enough leverage to move both parties — remains absorbed by the Middle East. And the gap between the sides on territory, NATO membership, and security guarantees is as wide as it has ever been.

The war enters its fifth year with no end in sight. Whether Turkey says yes to Ukraine's request may matter less than whether Moscow is ever willing to say yes to a negotiated peace.