Russian President Vladimir Putin has been briefed on an open letter from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Kremlin said on Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Izvestia news outlet that the written copy of Zelenskiy’s letter was handed to Mr. Putin overnight. According to Peskov, the president reviewed the document after it had circulated through media channels.
The open letter, released by Mr. Zelenskiy on Thursday, proposes a direct meeting between the two leaders with the explicit aim of negotiating an end to the war. In the letter, the Ukrainian president also warned that Kyiv would continue fighting if the talks did not produce an agreement. Mr. Zelenskiy additionally stated that Russians were growing weary of both President Putin and the protracted conflict.
Peskov said that Mr. Putin would likely address the contents of the letter during a plenary session at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. The Russian president is scheduled to speak at the forum on Friday afternoon, according to the Kremlin spokesman.
The sequence described by the Kremlin was straightforward: the written letter was delivered overnight, the president reviewed it following its circulation by media outlets, and the matter is expected to be raised at a high-profile public forum later in the day. Beyond these points, the Kremlin’s comments did not provide additional detail about any planned response, timeline for further action, or whether any follow-up communications between the two leaders have been arranged.
The public statements quoted the Kremlin spokesman’s account of events and summarized the key elements Zelenskiy set out in his open letter - a proposed meeting, an ultimatum-style warning that fighting would continue absent an agreement, and a claim that Russian public sentiment was turning against both the president and the ongoing war. The Kremlin has so far limited its public commentary to confirming the delivery and review of the written document and flagging that the president may address it during the St Petersburg forum.
Note: The article is based on the Kremlin spokesman’s account and Zelenskiy’s published open letter as reported in media coverage; no further details about follow-up actions or responses were provided by the Kremlin in the statements summarized here.