KYIV, July 11 — Against the backdrop of an ongoing war, the diplomatic landscape surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine remains a fractured mosaic of attempted talks, collapsed accords, and competing peace visions. The first direct negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow took place in Belarus on February 28, 2022, just days after the full-scale invasion began. Those talks gave way to a more significant round in Turkey the following month, culminating in the Istanbul communiqué of March 29, 2022.
That document proposed Ukrainian neutrality in exchange for international security guarantees — a framework that, at the time, appeared to offer a potential off-ramp. What is at stake in those early negotiations became clear when the talks collapsed in May 2022.
The discovery of mass graves and evidence of civilian executions in Bucha, outside Kyiv, shattered whatever fragile trust remained between the two sides. Since then, the search for a diplomatic path has shifted to a series of international formats, none of which have brought Moscow and Kyiv back to the same table. China entered the fray in February 2023 with a 12-point peace plan that called for a ceasefire and respect for sovereignty.
Ukraine, for its part, has advanced its own 10-point peace formula. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plan has been the subject of dedicated summits in Copenhagen in June 2023, Jeddah in August 2023, and Malta in October 2023.
The wider picture remains one of deep deadlock. Russia has refused direct talks with President Zelenskyy, demanding instead that Ukraine recognise the annexation of four partially occupied regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — as well as Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. For Kyiv, any such concession is a non-starter.
Looking ahead, Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as a potential host for further diplomacy. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan confirmed in January 2025 that a follow-up summit would be held in the kingdom later this year. The United Nations, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia have all offered to host additional rounds of talks.
Against this backdrop, the question of who convenes the next meeting — and on what terms — may prove as consequential as the content of any eventual agreement. For now, the battlefield and the negotiating table remain locked in an uneasy standoff, with neither side willing to yield the ground that might break the impasse.
