Ukraine has asked Turkiye to host a Zelensky-Putin meeting, FM says

This combination of pictures created on August 18, 2025 shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) in Washington, DC, on August 18, 2025 and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. (FILE/AFP)

• “We asked the Turks about it, we asked some other capitals,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in comments

KYIV: Ukraine has asked Turkiye to host a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and ​Russian President Vladimir Putin, its top diplomat said, as Kyiv seeks to reinvigorate stalling peace talks.
“We asked the Turks about it, we asked some other capitals,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in comments to reporters on Tuesday ‌that were ‌cleared for release ​on ‌Wednesday.
He ⁠added ​that Ukraine ⁠would be ready to consider any place other than Belarus or Russia for a meeting with Putin, which Zelensky has long sought to try to hasten a resolution of ⁠the more than four-year war.
Belarus is ‌a close ally ‌of Russia and allowed ​Moscow to ‌use Belarusian territory to launch its full-scale ‌invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Sybiha did not say how Ankara had responded to the proposal.
“We addressed the Turks specifically,” he said. “But ‌if another capital, besides Moscow and Belarus, organizes such a meeting, we ⁠will ⁠go.”
The Kremlin previously said it is willing to host Zelensky in Moscow, where the Ukrainian leader has said he will not go.
Separately, Sybiha said that he had already exchanged written messages with Anita Orban, who will become Hungary’s new foreign minister when the new government, which ​won the election there ​earlier this month, takes power.