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Zelensky's front-line invitation to Putin
Summary
A retrospective on the Ukrainian president's offer of a face-to-face meeting in Donbas, made as tension over the Kerch Strait was rising.
What did it mean when one president asked another to meet on a battlefield? On 21 April 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to a face-to-face meeting on the front line in war-torn Donbas, to negotiate an end to the conflict.
The offer came amid a separate dispute at sea. On 15 April 2021, Ukraine had protested against an alleged Russian announcement that, beginning the following week, the Kerch Strait would be closed to foreign warships and state ships until October.
The two developments, six days apart, showed Kyiv pursuing a public diplomatic gesture on the Donbas war while objecting to Russian restrictions on a waterway. The invitation itself was specific: a meeting in person, held in the conflict zone, with the aim of ending the fighting.
