Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Zelensky named Turkey and his red lines; the Kremlin answered with “come to Moscow.”
This weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went on Turkish television to offer face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin on Turkish soil, and the Kremlin fired back by inviting him to Moscow instead. Neither side has conceded ground on the venue.
In an interview with Turkish broadcaster CNN Türk aired on Sunday, Zelensky said he is ready to sit down with the Russian president in Turkey, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the room.
“If Türkiye can make this happen, we would accept it and would only be happy about it,” the Ukrainian leader told the broadcaster according to Clash Report.
He also drew hard lines on territory. Accepting Russia’s demands to hand over the Donbas, the contested eastern region Moscow partially occupies, or to recognize Crimea as Russian would violate Ukraine’s constitution and was not up for negotiation, he said.
Zelensky named a full front-line ceasefire, monitoring mechanisms, security guarantees and reconstruction as the items he wanted on the agenda.
A Kremlin counter: come to Moscow
Hours later, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov pushed in the opposite direction. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, he said Zelensky was welcome to travel to Russia if he genuinely wanted to talk.
“He is sending signals through various sources. He wants to talk, and if he wants to talk so much, let him come,” Ushakov said, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.
Ushakov added that Putin would answer a direct phone call from Zelensky and had never refused a conversation. He did not accept Turkey as a venue.
A gap with Kyiv’s own earlier line
Zelensky’s firm “no” on territory also tightens a signal Kyiv had put forward only days earlier. On October 29, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha told Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that Zelensky was “ready to discuss the most difficult and sensitive issues, including territory,” at an in-person meeting with Putin.
The CNN Türk interview redraws that boundary. Talking about territory may still be on the table; handing over the Donbas or recognizing Crimea, Zelensky said, is not.
What happens next
Trilateral talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine are scheduled to resume in Abu Dhabi in early November, with security arrangements for a post-war settlement at the top of the agenda. Zelensky has said he wants that meeting held between November 6 and 10.
