Zelensky Criticizes US Diplomats for Bypassing Kyiv in Ukraine Peace Negotiations

On April 20, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered his most pointed criticism yet of the Trump administration's approach to ending the war in Ukraine. "It's disrespectful to come to Moscow and not Kyiv," Zelensky said in an interview, referring to US special envoy Steve Witkoff and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who have traveled to Moscow at least eight times since January 2025 to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin — while never once setting foot in the Ukrainian capital [1].

The remark landed at a moment when more than 15 months of US-led peace diplomacy have produced extensive contacts between Washington and Moscow but left Kyiv increasingly on the margins of discussions about its own territory, sovereignty, and security. The resulting tension raises a set of questions that go well beyond diplomatic protocol: What happens when the principal victim of a war is sidelined from negotiations to end it?

The Diplomatic Scorecard: Who Talked to Whom

Since the Trump administration took office in January 2025, the pace of US-Russia diplomatic contact has been intense. Witkoff, a former real estate executive serving as Trump's special envoy, made his first trip to Moscow in February 2025 and met with Putin directly [10]. By August 2025, he had visited Moscow five times [10]. Additional trips by Witkoff and Kushner in December 2025 and January 2026 brought the total to at least eight Moscow visits through early 2026 [6][7][8].

Source: Kyiv Independent / Axios / PBS News

Data as of Apr 22, 2026CSV

During the same period, neither Witkoff nor Kushner visited Kyiv. Their meetings with Ukrainian officials took place in third-party locations: Geneva in November 2025, Miami in late 2025, and Berlin in December 2025 [3][5]. A planned visit to Kyiv in early April 2026 did not materialize, with Zelensky noting it was postponed and expressing doubt about when — or whether — it would happen [1].

This stands in contrast to the earlier phase of Trump's Ukraine diplomacy. Keith Kellogg, who served as Trump's special envoy for Ukraine before Witkoff took over the lead negotiating role, visited Kyiv at least three times in 2025 — in July, August, and September — and met directly with Zelensky in both one-on-one and expanded formats [11][12][13]. Kellogg was awarded Ukraine's Order of Merit during his August visit [12]. But as the diplomatic track shifted from Kellogg's shuttle diplomacy to the Witkoff-Kushner channel focused on direct engagement with Moscow, Kyiv's seat at the table became less permanent.

What Was Discussed Without Kyiv Present

The centerpiece of late-2025 diplomacy was a 28-point peace plan, a document drafted primarily by US and Russian negotiators — Witkoff and his Russian counterpart, Kirill Dmitriev [3]. In December 2025, Witkoff and Kushner met Putin in the Kremlin for approximately five hours to try to secure Russian support for the plan. Issues around sovereignty over Ukraine's Donbas region and the exact line of demarcation "proved impossible to bridge" [7][8].

Zelensky acknowledged that by late December 2025, after weeks of parallel talks in Geneva, Miami, Berlin, and Mar-a-Lago, US and Ukrainian teams had agreed on "90% of a 20-point peace framework" [3]. But the remaining 10% contains precisely the issues Zelensky has called non-negotiable: territorial sovereignty, security guarantees, and the question of NATO membership [4].

The ABC News report from early 2026 noted that Zelensky said "no compromise" had been reached on the territory question in peace settlement discussions [4]. Three rounds of talks between US, Ukrainian, and Russian officials in the UAE and Switzerland in late January and February 2026 failed to achieve a breakthrough [3].

The NPR report from December 2025 indicated the US had offered Ukraine a 15-year security guarantee as part of the peace framework [5] — a timeframe significantly shorter than the permanent collective defense commitment that NATO membership would provide.

Legal Obligations: The Budapest Memorandum and Its Limits

The question of whether the United States is legally obligated to consult Ukraine before negotiating terms that affect its borders has no simple answer.

The Budapest Memorandum of 1994, signed by the US, UK, and Russia, was the instrument under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal — the world's third-largest at the time. Under the memorandum, the signatories pledged to "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" and to "refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine" [14]. The memorandum also included a procedural commitment to "seek immediate" UN Security Council action if Ukraine became a victim of aggression, and a provision for joint consultations in situations raising questions about these commitments [14].

The US government, however, has publicly maintained that the Budapest Memorandum is "not legally binding" — characterizing it as a "political commitment" rather than a treaty obligation [14]. Former US diplomat Steven Pifer has argued that regardless of legal technicalities, "there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine" [14]. At the 2022 Munich Security Conference, Zelensky disclosed that Ukraine had tried three times since 2014 to convene consultations with the guarantor states under the memorandum's provisions, "all without success" [14].

No formal invocation or waiver of these obligations has been publicly reported in the current round of negotiations.

The Multilateral Landscape: Who Else Is at the Table

The US-led bilateral track with Moscow is not the only diplomatic channel active on Ukraine. Multiple countries and blocs have positioned themselves as mediators or interlocutors, creating a patchwork of contacts that differs markedly from the structure of the Minsk agreements (2014–2015), which operated through the "Normandy Format" of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany — with Ukraine present at every session [15].

Turkey has been among the most assertive would-be mediators. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called Turkey the "ideal host" for future talks, and both Russia and Ukraine have described Turkey as a "reliable mediator" [15]. In December 2025, Erdoğan told Putin directly that a limited ceasefire for energy facilities and ports "could be beneficial" [15].

Saudi Arabia hosted senior-level meetings between US and Russian officials and between US and Ukrainian officials in the early months of 2025, marking the first serious indirect Russia-Ukraine talks since the full-scale invasion began [16]. The UAE facilitated several prisoner exchanges throughout 2024, mediating the release of over 3,200 prisoners of war, and hosted trilateral talks in early 2026 [16].

China has promoted itself as a neutral party despite its deepening military ties with Russia. China's Special Representative to the EU criticized the Trump administration in March 2025 for its "brazen and domineering policy towards Europe," arguing that the peace process "must include all involved parties" — a statement that, whatever its motivation, aligned with Zelensky's position [16].

The EU has been involved primarily through its member states. The UK and France proposed installing "military hubs" in Ukraine as part of a peace framework in January 2026 [3]. Zelensky met with European leaders alongside Witkoff and Kushner in Berlin in December 2025.

The key structural difference from the Minsk process: under the current US-led framework, there is no formal mechanism guaranteeing Ukraine's presence at every negotiating session.

Historical Precedent: What Happens When a Party Is Left Out

The question of whether peace agreements negotiated without a principal party can hold has a mixed historical record.

The Dayton Accords (1995): The Bosnian peace agreement was negotiated with all principal parties present — Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman — though US negotiator Richard Holbrooke controlled the process tightly, moving between parties with American-drafted texts [17]. The agreement held in the sense that it ended the fighting, but 30 years later Bosnia remains politically dysfunctional, described as "an ugly peace that has prevented a return to war" rather than a durable settlement [17].

The Korean Armistice (1953): South Korean President Syngman Rhee refused to sign the armistice agreement between the UN Command, North Korea, and China. South Korea was not a signatory. The ceasefire held — but no peace treaty was ever concluded, and the Korean Peninsula remains technically at war nearly 73 years later [17].

The Paris Peace Accords (1973): The agreement to end US involvement in Vietnam was negotiated primarily between Washington and Hanoi. South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu was pressured into accepting terms he opposed. The accords collapsed within two years, and South Vietnam fell in 1975.

Academic research on back-channel diplomacy — defined as "officially sanctioned negotiations conducted in secret between the parties to a dispute" — suggests such channels serve specific purposes: removing talks from public scrutiny, building trust before formal negotiations, and circumventing preconditions [18]. But scholars at Harvard's Program on Negotiation note that when back channels substitute for rather than supplement direct engagement with a principal party, the resulting agreements tend to lack the buy-in needed for implementation [18].

The Human Stakes: 10.6 Million Displaced

The diplomatic maneuvering takes place against a backdrop of staggering human cost. Since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has verified 55,600 civilian casualties as of December 31, 2025 [19]. Zelensky estimated in April 2025 that 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed [19]. A CSIS report put Russian military casualties at over 950,000, including up to 250,000 killed [19].

Source: UNHCR / INTERSOS

Data as of Dec 31, 2025CSV

An estimated 10.6 million Ukrainians have been displaced — 24% of the country's pre-invasion population of 44 million. Of these, 3.7 million are internally displaced within Ukraine, and 6.9 million are living as refugees across Europe [19]. Ukraine remains the world's second-largest source of refugees after Syria, with 5.3 million refugees globally according to UNHCR data [20].

Source: UNHCR Population Data

Data as of Dec 31, 2025CSV

What Ukrainians Think

Ukrainian public opinion has shifted dramatically since 2022. According to Gallup polling from August 2025, 69% of Ukrainians said their country should seek to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible — up from just 22% in 2022. The share who said Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins fell from 73% to 24% over the same period [21].

Source: Gallup

Data as of Aug 7, 2025CSV

But support for negotiations does not translate into support for any deal at any price. Among Ukrainians open to peace talks, 52% expressed willingness to consider territorial concessions, while 38% remained opposed [22]. A December 2025 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) found that large majorities remain unwilling to accept peace on Russia's terms [23]. By early 2025, 77% of Ukrainians favored a 30-day ceasefire proposal — but as a step toward negotiations, not as a substitute for them [22].

Only 25% of respondents in a July 2025 Gallup poll believed active fighting would come to a lasting end within 12 months [21]. The majority of Ukrainians surveyed believed the US, UK, and EU should continue playing significant roles in peace talks — but with Ukraine's government directly involved [23].

The Case for Back-Channel Talks

Experienced negotiators and foreign policy analysts have offered a defense of the US approach that goes beyond dismissing Zelensky's complaints.

The core argument: preliminary engagement with an adversary is standard diplomatic practice, and conflating it with final-status negotiations misrepresents what is happening. Back-channel talks with Russia allow Washington to test Moscow's red lines, explore possible compromises, and build the trust necessary before bringing all parties into a room together [18]. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 — resolved through discreet intermediaries between Kennedy and Khrushchev — remains the canonical example of this approach [18].

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank, published analysis arguing that the US possesses significant leverage in negotiations — including sanctions policy, military aid, and energy trade — and that using this leverage effectively requires the flexibility to engage Moscow directly [24]. The Trump administration has not explicitly articulated the distinction between back-channel and final-status negotiations, but the White House's November 2025 joint statement with Ukraine described the Geneva talks as "constructive, focused, and respectful," suggesting both sides viewed the process as collaborative rather than exclusionary [5].

The counterargument from Kyiv is straightforward: eight visits to Moscow and zero to Kyiv is not a back channel — it is a pattern. And patterns, in diplomacy, signal priorities.

US Leverage: The Tools of Compulsion

If a peace framework were agreed or imposed without Kyiv's full consent, the United States holds several concrete mechanisms that could compel or prevent Ukrainian compliance.

Military aid: The most direct lever. In early 2025, the Trump administration suspended military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, lifting the suspension only after Ukraine agreed to a US-brokered 30-day ceasefire proposal in March 2025 [25]. The precedent is now established: aid flows can be conditioned on diplomatic compliance.

Sanctions relief for Russia: The Trump administration has not added any new individuals or entities to the Russia sanctions list since taking office in January 2025, and Trump suggested in early February 2025 that Russia should be readmitted to the G7 [25]. The prospect of easing sanctions gives the US leverage over Russia, but withholding sanctions relief also gives Washington indirect leverage over Ukraine — since Kyiv's negotiating position weakens if the sanctions regime erodes regardless of whether Ukraine cooperates.

Security guarantees: The US offer of a 15-year security guarantee [5] creates a conditional incentive: Ukraine's long-term security depends on accepting the terms Washington negotiates. If Kyiv rejects a framework, the guarantee may not materialize.

Financial support: At the start of 2026, the US has begun a "sustained drawdown" in financial support for Ukraine's defense [25]. The implicit message: cooperation with the peace process is tied to continued material support.

None of these levers has been publicly framed as coercive by the administration. But the cumulative effect — suspended aid, eroding sanctions, conditional security guarantees, declining financial support — creates a set of incentives that constrain Kyiv's freedom to reject terms it considers unacceptable.

What Comes Next

As of late April 2026, the Witkoff-Kushner visit to Kyiv remains unscheduled. Zelensky has said he is willing to meet "in other countries" if the envoys do not want to come to Ukraine [1]. Trilateral talks involving the US, Ukraine, and Russia could resume, but Zelensky has questioned the format and expressed doubt about whether the current diplomatic structure serves Ukraine's interests [2].

The 28-point peace plan remains unresolved on its most contentious provisions. Russia continues to reject key elements [9]. The territory question — specifically sovereignty over the Donbas region and the line of demarcation — remains the central obstacle [7].

For Zelensky, the stakes are existential: a peace deal that sacrifices Ukrainian sovereignty without Ukrainian consent would undermine not only his government but the principle that nations under attack retain the right to shape the terms of their own survival. For the Trump administration, the calculation is different — ending a war that has consumed hundreds of billions in Western aid, risked nuclear escalation, and dominated US foreign policy for four years.

The gap between those two positions is measured not in policy papers but in flight paths: Moscow eight times, Kyiv zero.