If a Putin-Zelensky summit takes place, where could it be?

Ambitious plans for a bilateral summit between the Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and the Vladimir Putin of Russia seem to block, just days after Donald Trump expressed his confidence that such a meeting could take place in a few weeks.

The locations of Geneva and Vienna in Budapest or Istanbul have all been mentioned as possible sites. Putin and Zelensky have not been in the same room since 2019, three years before the launch of its large -scale invasion of Ukraine.

The American president said that he had “started arrangements” for the summit, indicating that he was thinking that Putin had accepted him by phone on Monday.

It may have been an optimistic reading of the conversation.

Almost at the same time, the Kremlin shared its own more vague version of the exchange. Trump and Putin had discussed “the possibility of increasing the level of representatives” – said the Yuri Ushakov aid – and this could simply mean that ministers, instead of envoys, can participate in talks.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that a meeting could occur “within two weeks”. But, “he warned:” We do not know if the Russian president will have the courage to attend such a summit “and he was pressure for Putin to be” convinced “.

Trump mentioned a “brutal” situation for Russia, if Putin does not cooperate the peace process, but refused to be more precise.

Now, while the diplomatic whirlwind goes out, the probability of a meeting between Putin and Zelensky seems to decrease more.

On the surface, Moscow seems to be open to participation in bilateral talks between the two presidents. In reality, however, the prerequisites it attaches to a meeting will be almost certainly unacceptable for the Ukrainian part.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that Putin was ready to meet Zelensky provided all the “problems” that required consideration “at the highest level” were resolved. This vague but uncompromising language was used by the Kremlin in the past to resist Ukrainian proposals for a bilateral meeting.

Last week, Trump’s sending Steve Witkoff said that Russia has accepted security guarantees for Ukraine, calling it “a very important step”.

But it now appears that the guarantees in question would be modeled on the first floating by Moscow and rejected by kyiv in 2022, who would see Russia join a group of countries exercising a veto on military intervention to defend Ukraine.

This proposal would also see a ban on Western troops stationed in Ukraine, which leaves it defenseless in the event of an invasion of fresh Russia. Lavrov said Thursday that any other security manager would be “an absolutely futile company”.

Zelensky, on the other hand, said that any meeting with Putin should come after Kyiv allies were satisfied with security guarantees – which would undoubtedly imply the support of Western forces and excludes Russia, which makes it the genre that Moscow would never accept.

As things, neither Russia nor Ukraine seem ready to move from their long -standing positions – and each accuses the other of undermining the efforts to conclude a peace agreement.

The possibility of a Putin-Zelensky summit can for the moment seem distant, but that has not stopped speculation on the place where it could happen.

In the aftermath of the diplomatic frenzy who followed the talks at the White House, Budapest was mentioned as a place for a potential meeting and the Americans were favorable.

“They can come to Hungary at any time,” said Hungarian Foreign Affairs, Peter Sizjjarto. “Give us one hour notice in advance, and we are ready to guarantee fair, decent, safe and equal conditions for everyone in Hungary.”

But not everyone considers the Hungarian capital as a sufficiently neutral land. Prime Minister Viktor Orban is one of the few European leaders who has maintained links with Putin. He also blocked funding for Ukraine and is committed to vetoing Ukrainian membership in the EU.

“Let’s be honest, Budapest did not support us,” said Zelensky on Thursday. “I am not saying that Orban’s policy was against Ukraine, but it was against the support of Ukraine,” he told journalists, adding that talks in Budapest would be “difficult”.

On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on X that he was opposed to Budapest’s organizational talks. The city was the location of a 1994 summit which led to the renunciation of kyiv of the Soviet nuclear arsenal in exchange for insurance of Russian security. These were then made meaningless by the illegal annexation of Moscow in 2014 Crimea and its large-scale invasion in 2022.

“Maybe I’m superstitious, but this time, I would try to find another place,” said Tusk.

Emmanuel Macron, France, has raised the possibility that the summit will take place in Switzerland – a militarily neutral European country with a long history of welcoming interviews with high issues. Zelensky also mentioned Vienna, the headquarters of several international organizations.

In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a mandate mandate for Putin alleging war crimes in Ukraine, but Switzerland and Austria – the two signatories of the ICC – declared that they would grant immunity to the Russian president if he came for peace talks.

Turkey has also been launched as an option.

There is a precedent, because Istanbul has already organized three cycles of direct talks at the level of the delegation between Ukraine and Russia since April, although they have not led to significant progress towards a cease-fire beyond an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war.

The Vatican and Saudi Arabia were also mentioned by Ukraine as possible locations. The Vatican has long presented itself as an appropriate place, while Saudi Arabia has already negotiated exchanges of prisoners between kyiv and Moscow.

Far from high -level diplomacy, war shows no signs of slowdown.

Ukraine said Thursday that its armed forces had struck an oil refinery in the Rostov region in Russia, which borders the eastern regions of Ukraine of Donbas.

Russia, on the other hand, has launched its greatest wave of strikes on Ukraine for weeks, killing a person and injuring much more.

“There is always no Moscow signal that they will really initiate significant negotiations and put an end to this war,” said Zelensky on social networks. “Pressure is necessary.”