Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is open to joining Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump at a proposed peace summit in Budapest — but only if formally invited and if the meeting format ensures balanced representation.
Zelensky made the remarks on Monday, following reports that Trump and Putin plan to meet in the Hungarian capital within weeks as part of Washington’s renewed push to broker an end to the three-and-a-half-year war sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“If I am invited to Budapest — if it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three or, as it’s called, shuttle diplomacy, President Trump meets with Putin and President Trump meets with me — then in one format or another, we will agree,” Zelensky told reporters.
However, the Ukrainian leader voiced reservations about Hungary serving as host, citing Budapest’s close ties to Moscow and its strained relationship with Kyiv.
“I do not believe that a prime minister who blocks Ukraine everywhere can do anything positive for Ukrainians or even provide a balanced contribution,” he said, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has frequently opposed European Union aid packages for Ukraine.
Kyiv officials have previously proposed alternative neutral venues for potential trilateral talks, including Turkey, Switzerland, and the Vatican, which they view as more impartial.
Zelensky also drew historical parallels to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — a security agreement signed by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom that guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal.
“Another ‘Budapest’ scenario wouldn’t be positive either,” Zelensky cautioned, referencing the failure of that accord to prevent Russia’s subsequent aggression.
President Trump, who returned to the White House earlier this year, has made ending the Ukraine war a key foreign policy objective. His administration has sought to organize direct negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, including a prior summit with Putin in Alaska, though those efforts have yet to yield a breakthrough.
Analysts say a potential Budapest summit could mark the most direct diplomatic engagement between the three leaders since the conflict began — but skepticism remains high in Kyiv over Moscow’s willingness to compromise and Hungary’s neutrality as host.
