On the heels of a flurry of Ukrainian drone strikes deep in Russia and recent shifts in Ukraine\u2019s favor on the battlefield, President Volodymyr Zelensky published on Thursday an open letter to President Vladimir V. Putin.<\/p>\n
The letter<\/a>, posted on the Ukrainian president\u2019s website, offered to resume peace talks \u2014 but taunted the Russian leader over wartime setbacks, inflation and Russia\u2019s dependence on China. It also made note of Mr. Putin\u2019s advancing age.<\/p>\n Mr. Zelensky has at various points in the war recorded video statements addressing Mr. Putin or the Russian people, including on the first day of Moscow\u2019s invasion in 2022. This letter was among the most scathing direct addresses to Mr. Putin so far.<\/p>\n Mr. Zelensky noted that Mr. Putin has by now spent about half of his 26 years in power as Russia\u2019s paramount leader fighting Ukraine. The timeline counts the Russian military intervention<\/a> in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014 and the full-scale invasion launched in 2022.<\/p>\n He offered a cease-fire if Mr. Putin wanted one.<\/p>\n Mr. Zelensky said he would meet for direct talks outside the Trump administration\u2019s negotiating process. Those talks, led by Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor, and Jared Kushner, President Trump\u2019s son-in-law, ground to a halt after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began in February.<\/p>\n Mr. Zelensky suggested including European nations and holding a leaders\u2019 meeting in Switzerland, Turkey or an Arab state. He has offered direct meetings with Mr. Putin before, without result.<\/p>\n Though addressed to Mr. Putin, the open letter seemed intended as well for Mr. Trump\u2019s attention. And it was not clear whether Mr. Zelensky\u2019s appeal was meant to jump-start talks or to denigrate a potential negotiating counterpart.<\/p>\n Woven into the offer for peace talks were needling remarks about a strongman leader unable to defend his own capital, Moscow, or a second city, St. Petersburg, from a nation Mr. Putin invaded four and a half years ago with the goal of a quick win.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter 26 years in power, age is beginning to take its toll,\u201d Mr. Zelensky wrote to Mr. Putin, who is 73, turning the knife. Mr. Zelensky, who is 25 years younger, has pointed to the Russian leader\u2019s age to cast doubt on the stability of Russia\u2019s one-man-rule political system.<\/p>\n The letter also touched on reports of rising discontent in Russia over gasoline shortages from attacks on refineries, as well as inflation and war fatigue.<\/p>\n Most independent analysts of Russia\u2019s politics say Mr. Putin is not vulnerable to internal unrest.<\/p>\n Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told Russian media on Friday that Mr. Putin had been briefed on the letter but declined to comment further.<\/p>\n Pro-Kremlin pundits dismissed Mr. Zelensky\u2019s appeal as rude and taunting. Sergei Markov, a pro-Putin analyst who often channels the Kremlin\u2019s thinking, accused Mr. Zelensky of insulting the Russian president and seeking to \u201cstoke divisions in Russian society.\u201d<\/p>\n In a post<\/a> on Telegram, Mr. Markov said he did not expect the Kremlin to offer any substantive response because of the letter\u2019s \u201ctaunting nature.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter was posted a day after a drone strike on an oil depot outside St. Petersburg and a day before Mr. Putin is scheduled to deliver a speech to an economic conference at a venue outside that city on Friday. The attack sent a huge cloud of black smoke<\/a> wafting over the highway leading from the city to the conference site.<\/p>\n