{"id":131874,"date":"2026-06-04T14:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T20:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/in-public-letter-ukraines-zelenskyy-calls-on-putin-for-direct-negotiations-in-a-neutral-country\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T14:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T20:27:07","slug":"in-public-letter-ukraines-zelenskyy-calls-on-putin-for-direct-negotiations-in-a-neutral-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/in-public-letter-ukraines-zelenskyy-calls-on-putin-for-direct-negotiations-in-a-neutral-country\/","title":{"rendered":"In public letter, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy calls on Putin for direct negotiations in a neutral country"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ukraine's
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo\/Evgeniy Maloletka)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Evgeniy Maloletka)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> on Thursday called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

The letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022<\/a>, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader\u2019s 26 years in power.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities<\/a>, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am proposing a meeting,\u201d Zelenskyy wrote.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump said it \u201cwould be great\u201d if Putin and Zelenskyy met. \u201cThey should get it done,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Asked what concessions he had urged Putin to make to end the war, Trump declined to provide details but said both sides would need to compromise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to both make compromises,\u201d he said. \u201cI suggested those compromises.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy appeared to be trying to seize a pivotal moment in the war, as Ukraine has begun to regain some battlefield leverage largely through improved long-range strike capabilities that have complicated Russia\u2019s advances. At the same time, Moscow has intensified its deadly aerial campaign across Ukraine, seeking to exploit Kyiv\u2019s shortages and continued vulnerability to ballistic missile attacks.<\/p>\n

He said the talks could be hosted by a neutral third country, ruling out both Moscow and Kyiv as venues and suggested Switzerland, Turkey or Arab states as possible hosts for negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is leaders who resolve the key issues. That has always been the case, and it always will be,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI propose to set a clear date for such a meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Ukrainian intelligence indicated Russia was considering plans to prolong the war into 2027 and 2028, while increasingly relying on ballistic missile strikes to achieve what its ground campaign had failed to accomplish.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy also accused Moscow of seeking to draw Belarus deeper into the conflict and of attempting to destabilize the situation around Transnistria, the breakaway Moldovan region backed by Russia.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian leader argued that Russia was increasingly feeling the costs of the war, pointing to drone attacks deep inside Russian territory, economic strain, fuel shortages, rising prices, and the necessity of more military mobilization.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy claimed Russia suffered more than 30,000 soldiers killed or seriously wounded in May alone, saying Ukraine had \u201cvideo confirmation\u201d of the battlefield losses and that such casualty levels had been sustained month after month.<\/p>\n

He added that Ukraine also continues to suffer painful losses despite what he described as a favorable casualty ratio.<\/p>\n

He said Ukraine was prepared to implement a full ceasefire for the duration of negotiations and proposed an all-for-all prisoner exchange as a first step toward ending the conflict.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy also called for the return of civilians and children taken from Ukraine during the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world has not grown tired of Ukraine, as you long hoped it would. But there is growing fatigue with Russia,\u201d Zelenskyy said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo\/Evgeniy Maloletka)(AP Photo\/Evgeniy Maloletka) KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to Russian President Vladimir […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-131874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131874"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=131874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}