The facts
President Trump this week again asked Volodymyr Zelensky to fly to Moscow and sit down with Vladimir Putin. Bloomberg reported it Sept. 25, citing the meeting the two had at the UN General Assembly in New York. Zelensky declined. People familiar with his position told Bloomberg that Trump raising Moscow upset him.
This is not a new invitation. On July 8, with Zelensky next to him, Trump said Putin wanted the meeting in Moscow and then asked the Ukrainian president if he would go. Zelensky's answer, reported by the Jerusalem Post: "It is difficult. There are lots of Ukrainian drones there. It's dangerous." Trump told reporters the same day that a Moscow meeting "just doesn't work." C-SPAN has him saying Putin wanted it "ideally in Moscow," and that he, Trump, had already ruled that out.
The Kremlin has not moved. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin is open to meeting Trump, and that if Zelensky wants a face-to-face he can come to Moscow. Peskov has also called a Putin-Zelensky meeting a waste of time until "expert-level" work is done. Kyiv has offered third countries. Moscow has waved those off.
What Zelensky did ask for in New York, on the record, was a trilateral with Trump and Putin, "anytime when all the sides will be ready," plus an energy ceasefire: Ukraine stops hitting Russian energy if Russia stops hitting Ukraine's power, heat, and water. He also wants Patriots before winter. Trump told reporters, "We will get that one done." The war is in its fifth year. Witkoff and Kushner did Moscow and Kyiv earlier this month and came home without a deal.
Our take
The peace venue Trump keeps pitching is the living room of the guy doing the bombing. Zelensky already told him, in July, that Ukrainian drones make Moscow a stupid place to park a motorcade. Trump agreed out loud that it doesn't work. Then he asked again at the UN, and Bloomberg's sources say Kyiv took it personally.
Peskov's line is the same postcard: come to Moscow. That is not neutral ground. That is the terms. A trilateral in a third city is a meeting. A summons to the Kremlin is a photo of who lost. Zelensky can want the war over and still refuse to do the handshake under Putin's chandeliers. Trump already knew the answer. He asked anyway.
