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Zelensky's front-line offer to Putin, 21 April 2021
Summary
A retrospective on an invitation to meet in Donbas, issued as Moscow and Washington traded punishments and Kyiv protested over the Kerch Strait.
What did it mean when Ukraine's president invited his Russian counterpart to the front line? On 21 April 2021, President Volodymyr Zelensky invited Vladimir Putin to a face-to-face meeting in the war-torn Donbas, to negotiate an end to the conflict.
A week of sharpening tensions
The invitation came after several days in which relations between Russia and the West, and between Russia and Ukraine, had worsened.
On 15 April 2021, the United States imposed retaliatory measures on Russia over the 2020 federal government data breach, interference in the 2020 US elections, and the occupation of and human rights abuses in Crimea. Washington banned trade in newly issued bonds of Russia's Central Bank, National Wealth Fund and Ministry of Finance. It formally named the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service as responsible for the breach, blacklisted 32 Russian entities and individuals, and expelled ten Russian diplomats. Russia denied the allegations.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the US ambassador to say that a series of retaliatory measures would follow soon. A ministry spokesperson also said a potential summit between the two countries' leaders might not take place.
On the same day, Ukraine protested an alleged Russian announcement that, from the following week, the Kerch Strait would be closed to foreign warships and state ships until October.
Reading the offer
Set against that backdrop, the choice of venue stands out. The front line in Donbas is where the war is actually fought, and the proposal asked for a direct meeting of the two presidents there, rather than talks conducted at a distance.
The invitation was also an offer made while Moscow was in dispute with Washington over sanctions and expulsions, and while Kyiv was objecting to restrictions on shipping near its coast. Russia's relations with the United States were under strain, and a leaders' summit between them was in doubt. Kyiv's proposal put a bilateral Ukrainian-Russian meeting on the table.
What the offer would achieve was not settled on 21 April 2021. It set out Kyiv's stated aim: a negotiated end to the conflict in Donbas, reached by the two leaders in person.
