Donald Trump has raised the chance of directs talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, in what will be the first such come upon in additional than 3 years of conflict between the 2 nations.
In a social media put up on Aug. 18, 2025, the U.S. president introduced that he had begun “the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined.”
Whether or not the proposed assembly does pass forward given the animosity between the 2 males is still observed. Earlier hypothesis previous in 2025 that Putin and Zelenskyy may interact in face-to-face talks led nowhere.
However must Trump achieve bringing Putin and Zelenkyy in combination, it will now not be the primary time they have got met.
In Paris in 2019, the 2 males sat down in combination as a part of what used to be referred to as the Normandy Structure talks. As a pupil of world members of the family, I’ve interviewed other folks concerned within the talks. Some 5 years on, the best way the talks floundered after which failed can be offering courses concerning the demanding situations these days’s would-be mediators now face.
Preliminary hopes
The Normandy Structure talks began at the sidelines of occasions in June 2014 commemorating the seventieth anniversary of the D-Day landings. The purpose used to be to take a look at to get to the bottom of the continued battle between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatist teams within the nation’s Donbas area within the east. That battle had not too long ago escalated, with pro-Russian separatists seizing key cities within the Donetsk and Luhansk after Russia illegally annexed the peninsula of Crimea in February 2014.
The talks persisted periodically till 2022, when Russia introduced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Till that time, lots of the dialogue used to be framed through two offers, the Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015, which set out the phrases for a ceasefire between Kyiv and the Moscow-armed rebellion teams and the stipulations for elections in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Volodymyr Zelenskyy attend the Normandy Structure talks in Paris on Dec. 9, 2019.
Xinhua/Gao Jing by the use of Getty Pictures
By the point of the 6th assembly in December 2019, the one time Zelenkyy and Putin have met in individual, some nonetheless was hoping that the Minsk accords may just shape a framework for peace.
Beneath dialogue
Zelenskyy used to be just a few months into his presidency. He arrived in Paris with contemporary power and a want to seek out peace.
His electoral marketing campaign had targeted at the promise of hanging an finish to the unrest in Donbas, which were rumbling on for years. The expanding position of Russia within the battle, via supporting rebels financially and with volunteer Russian infantrymen, had sophisticated and escalated combating, and lots of Ukrainians have been weary of the have an effect on of internally displaced folks that it led to.
Through all accounts, Zelenskyy went into Paris believing that he may just make a care for Putin.
“I want to return with concrete results,” Zelenskyy stated simply days earlier than assembly Putin. Through then, the Ukrainian president’s best touch with Putin were over the telephone. “I want to see the person and I want to bring from Normandy understanding and feeling that everybody really wants gradually to finish this tragic war,” Zelenskyy stated, including, “I can feel it for sure only at the table.”
Considered one of Putin’s primary considerations going into the talks used to be the lifting of Western sanctions imposed in accordance with the annexation of Crimea.
However the Russian president additionally sought after to stay Russia’s smaller neighbor underneath its affect. Ukraine won independence after the autumn of the Soviet Union in 1991. However within the early years of the brand new century, Russia started to exert expanding affect over the politics of its neighbor. This led to 2014, when a well-liked revolution ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and ushered in a pro-Western govt.
Greater than anything else, Russia sought after to arrest this shift and stay Ukraine out of the Ecu Union and NATO.
The ones needs – Ukraine’s to finish the conflict in Donbas, and Russia’s to curb the West’s involvement in Ukraine – shaped the parameters for the Normandy talks.
And for a while, there seemed to be momentum to seek out compromise. French President Emmanuel Macron stated that the 2019 Paris talks had damaged years of stalemate and relaunched the peace procedure. Putin’s overview used to be that the peace procedure used to be “developing in the right direction.” Zelenskyy’s view used to be rather less enthusisastic: “Let’s say for now it’s a draw.”
Speaking previous every different
But the Putin-Zelenskyy assembly in 2019 in the end led to failure. On reflection, either side have been speaking previous every different and may just now not succeed in settlement at the sequencing of key portions of the peace plan.
Zelenskyy sought after the protection provisions of the Minsk accords, together with a long-lasting ceasefire and the securing of Ukraine’s border with Russia, in position earlier than continuing with regional elections on devolving autonomy to the areas. Putin used to be adamant that the elections come first.
The good fortune of the Normandy talks have been additionally hindered through Putin’s refusal to recognize that Russia used to be a birthday party to the battle. Relatively, he framed the Donbas battle as a civil conflict between the Ukrainian govt and the rebels. Russia’s position used to be merely to push the rebels to the negotiating desk on this take – a view that used to be greeted with skepticism through Ukraine and the West.
Because of this, the Normandy talks stalled. After which in February 2022, Russian introduced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Manner ahead these days?
So what are the probabilities of good fortune must Trump protected a 2nd face-to-face assembly between Putin and Zelenskyy?
Most of the similar demanding situations stay. The talks nonetheless revolve across the problems with safety, the standing of Donetsk and Luhansk.
However there are primary variations – now not least, 3½ years of tangible direct conflict. Russia can not deny that this can be a birthday party of the battle, even supposing Moscow frames the conflict as a unique army operation to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine.
And 3 years of conflict have modified how the questions of Crimea and the Donbas are framed.
Within the Normandy talks, there used to be no communicate of spotting Russian keep an eye on over any Ukrainian territory. However fresh U.S. efforts to barter peace have integrated a “de-jure” U.S. reputation of Russian keep an eye on in Crimea, plus “de-facto recognition” of Russia’s profession of the vast majority of Luhansk oblast and the occupied parts of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Some other primary distinction between the negotiation procedure then and now could be who’s mediating.
The Normandy negotiations have been led through Ecu leaders – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Macron of France. All the way through the entire Normandy talks procedure, best Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia have been concerned as energetic members.
Lately, it’s the US taking the lead.
And this fits Putin. A relentless factor for Putin of the Normandy talks used to be that Germany and France have been by no means impartial mediators.
In President Donald Trump, Putin has discovered a U.S. chief who, a minimum of in the beginning, seemed desperate to take at the mantle from Europe.
However just like the Europeans concerned within the Normandy talks, Trump may additionally come upon an identical boundaries to any significant development.
Individuals of Ukrainian and Russian delegations attend peace talks on June 2, 2025, in Istanbul.
Turkish Ministry of Overseas Affairs by the use of Getty Pictures
In spite of his fresh high-profile summit with Putin and follow-up assembly with Zelenksyy, Trump has made little development towards finishing the battle in Ukraine. And neither Zelenskyy nor Putin has proven any inclination to compromise on their objectives: Zelenskyy has dominated out land swaps, whilst Putin insists that any peace deal cope with “root causes.”
Getting the leaders of Ukraine and Russia into the similar room is already a large problem; getting them to conform to a long-lasting settlement is also as elusive now because it used to be when Putin and Zelenskyy met in 2019.
That is an up to date model of a piece of writing that used to be first printed in The Dialog on June 2, 2025.
