Russia invites Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Moscow for peace talks
Zelenskyy rejected a similar invitation last year, saying he could not go to the capital of a nation that was firing missiles at his country every day.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks at a joint press conference with Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda and Polish President Karol Nawrocki, at the Presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia had reiterated its invitation for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to come to Moscow for peace talks, as US-led efforts to reach a deal to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine intensify.
The Kremlin made its statement as the two countries carried out their latest exchange of war dead, and hours after it declined to comment on rumours that Moscow and Kyiv have agreed to stop striking each other’s energy infrastructure.
This is not the first time Russia has offered to host Zelenskyy in Moscow for peace talks. The Ukrainian President rejected a similar invitation last year, saying he could not go to the capital of a nation that was firing missiles at his country every day. He suggested at the time that Putin come to Kyiv instead.
The Russian invite to Zelenskyy comes days after officials from the two warring countries were joined by representatives from the US in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi for the first-ever trilateral talks aimed at ending the conflict.
Though the two-day talks last weekend have injected some new momentum into efforts to clinch a peace deal, differences persist between the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating stances.
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Major disagreement continues over who gets what territory in any deal, the potential presence of international peacekeepers or monitors in post-war Ukraine, and the fate of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Russia wants Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the roughly 20 per cent of the Donetsk region which the Russian army does not control.
Kyiv has said it does not want to gift Moscow territory, which Russia has not won on the battlefield, and which could serve as a platform in the future for Russian forces to push deeper into Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cast doubt on the viability of any security guarantees that Washington might be able to provide Ukraine as part of a deal, saying he doubted they could usher in an enduring peace if they were designed to keep Ukraine’s current political leadership in power.
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A new round of Abu Dhabi talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiating delegations is scheduled for Sunday, and US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that “very good things” were happening in the process.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks at a joint press conference with Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda and Polish President Karol Nawrocki, at the Presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) 
