Even if Trump succeeds in bringing Putin and Zelenskyy together, don’t expect wonders − their only previous face-to-face encounter ended in failure

Donald Trump has raised the prospect of directs talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, in what can be the primary such encounter in additional than three years of conflict between the 2 international locations.

In a social media submit on Aug. 18, 2025, the U.S. president introduced that he had begun “the preparations for a gathering, at a location to be decided.”

Whether or not the proposed assembly does go forward given the animosity between the 2 males stays to be seen. Earlier hypothesis earlier in 2025 that Putin and Zelenskyy would possibly interact in face-to-face talks led nowhere.

However ought to Trump achieve bringing Putin and Zelenkyy collectively, it could not be the primary time they’ve met.

In Paris in 2019, the 2 males sat down collectively as a part of what was referred to as the Normandy Format talks. As a scholar of worldwide relations, I’ve interviewed individuals concerned within the talks. Some 5 years on, the best way the talks floundered after which failed can provide classes in regards to the challenges right this moment’s would-be mediators now face.

Preliminary hopes

The Normandy Format talks began on the sidelines of occasions in June 2014 commemorating the seventieth anniversary of the D-Day landings. The purpose was to attempt to resolve the continued battle between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatist teams within the nation’s Donbas area within the east. That battle had just lately 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 continued periodically till 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Till that time, a lot of the dialogue was framed by two offers, the Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015, which set out the phrases for a ceasefire between Kyiv and the Moscow-armed insurgent teams and the circumstances for elections in Donetsk and Luhansk.

By the point of the sixth assembly in December 2019, the one time Zelenkyy and Putin have met in particular person, some nonetheless hoped that the Minsk accords may kind a framework for peace.

Underneath dialogue

Zelenskyy was just a few months into his presidency. He arrived in Paris with recent vitality and a need to seek out peace.

His electoral marketing campaign had centered on the promise of placing an finish to the unrest in Donbas, which had been rumbling on for years. The growing position of Russia within the battle, by means of supporting rebels financially and with volunteer Russian troopers, had difficult and escalated combating, and plenty of Ukrainians have been weary of the affect of internally displaced those who it brought about.

By all accounts, Zelenskyy went into Paris believing that he may make a cope with Putin.

“I wish to return with concrete outcomes,” Zelenskyy stated simply days earlier than assembly Putin. By then, the Ukrainian president’s solely contact with Putin had been over the cellphone. “I wish to see the particular person and I wish to carry from Normandy understanding and feeling that everyone actually desires step by step to complete this tragic conflict,” Zelenskyy stated, including, “I can really feel it for certain solely on the desk.”

One in every of Putin’s fundamental considerations going into the talks was the lifting of Western sanctions imposed in response to the annexation of Crimea.

However the Russian president additionally wished to maintain Russia’s smaller neighbor underneath its affect. Ukraine gained independence after the autumn of the Soviet Union in 1991. However within the early years of the brand new century, Russia started to exert growing affect over the politics of its neighbor. This resulted in 2014, when a preferred revolution ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and ushered in a pro-Western authorities.

Greater than something, Russia wished to arrest this shift and hold Ukraine out of the European Union and NATO.

These needs – Ukraine’s to finish the conflict in Donbas, and Russia’s to curb the West’s involvement in Ukraine – fashioned the parameters for the Normandy talks.

And for a while, there gave the impression 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 course of. Putin’s evaluation was that the peace course of was “creating in the correct route.” Zelenskyy’s view was rather less enthusisastic: “Let’s say for now it’s a draw.”

Speaking previous one another

But the Putin-Zelenskyy assembly in 2019 finally resulted in failure. On reflection, either side have been speaking previous one another and couldn’t attain settlement on the sequencing of key elements of the peace plan.

Zelenskyy wished the safety provisions of the Minsk accords, together with an enduring ceasefire and the securing of Ukraine’s border with Russia, in place earlier than continuing with regional elections on devolving autonomy to the areas. Putin was adamant that the elections come first.

The success of the Normandy talks have been additionally hindered by Putin’s refusal to acknowledge that Russia was a celebration to the battle. Quite, he framed the Donbas battle as a civil conflict between the Ukrainian authorities and the rebels. Russia’s position was merely to push the rebels to the negotiating desk on this take – a view that was greeted with skepticism by Ukraine and the West.

In consequence, the Normandy talks stalled. After which in February 2022, Russian launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Approach ahead right this moment?

So what are the possibilities of success ought to Trump safe a second face-to-face assembly between Putin and Zelenskyy?

Most of the similar challenges stay. The talks nonetheless revolve across the problems with safety, the standing of Donetsk and Luhansk.

However there are main variations – not least, 3½ years of precise direct conflict. Russia can not deny that it’s a get together of the battle, even when Moscow frames the conflict as a particular navy operation to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine.

And three years of conflict have modified how the questions of Crimea and the Donbas are framed.

Within the Normandy talks, there was no speak of recognizing Russian management over any Ukrainian territory. However current U.S. efforts to barter peace have included a “de-jure” U.S. recognition of Russian management in Crimea, plus “de-facto recognition” of Russia’s occupation of practically all of Luhansk oblast and the occupied parts of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

One other main distinction between the negotiation course of then and now could be who’s mediating.

The Normandy negotiations have been led by European leaders – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Macron of France. All through the entire Normandy talks course of, solely Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia have been concerned as lively individuals.

At the moment, it’s the US taking the lead.

And this fits Putin. A continuing subject for Putin of the Normandy talks was that Germany and France have been by no means impartial mediators.

In President Donald Trump, Putin has discovered a U.S. chief who, no less than at first, appeared desirous to tackle the mantle from Europe.

However just like the Europeans concerned within the Normandy talks, Trump can also encounter comparable limitations to any significant progress.

Regardless of his current high-profile summit with Putin and follow-up assembly with Zelenksyy, Trump has made little progress towards ending the battle in Ukraine. And neither Zelenskyy nor Putin has proven any inclination to compromise on their targets: Zelenskyy has dominated out land swaps, whereas Putin insists that any peace deal deal with “root causes.”

Getting the leaders of Ukraine and Russia into the identical room is already a large problem; getting them to conform to an enduring settlement could also be as elusive now because it was when Putin and Zelenskyy met in 2019.

That is an up to date model of an article that was first printed in The Dialog on June 2, 2025.