KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power.
Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war.
“I am proposing a meeting,” Zelenskyy wrote.
U.S. President Donald Trump said it “would be great” if Putin and Zelenskyy met. “They should get it done,” Trump said.
Asked what concessions he had urged Putin to make to end the war, Trump declined to provide details but said both sides would need to compromise.
“They’re going to both make compromises,” he said. “I suggested those compromises.”
Zelenskyy appeared to be trying to seize a pivotal moment in the war, as Ukraine has begun to regain some battlefield leverage largely through improved long-range strike capabilities that have complicated Russia’s advances. At the same time, Moscow has intensified its deadly aerial campaign across Ukraine, seeking to exploit Kyiv’s shortages and continued vulnerability to ballistic missile attacks.
He said the talks could be hosted by a neutral third country, ruling out both Moscow and Kyiv as venues and suggested Switzerland, Turkey or Arab states as possible hosts for negotiations.
“It is leaders who resolve the key issues. That has always been the case, and it always will be,” he wrote. “I propose to set a clear date for such a meeting.”
He said Ukrainian intelligence indicated Russia was considering plans to prolong the war into 2027 and 2028, while increasingly relying on ballistic missile strikes to achieve what its ground campaign had failed to accomplish.
Zelenskyy also accused Moscow of seeking to draw Belarus deeper into the conflict and of attempting to destabilize the situation around Transnistria, the breakaway Moldovan region backed by Russia.
The Ukrainian leader argued that Russia was increasingly feeling the costs of the war, pointing to drone attacks deep inside Russian territory, economic strain, fuel shortages, rising prices, and the necessity of more military mobilization.
Zelenskyy claimed Russia suffered more than 30,000 soldiers killed or seriously wounded in May alone, saying Ukraine had “video confirmation” of the battlefield losses and that such casualty levels had been sustained month after month.
He added that Ukraine also continues to suffer painful losses despite what he described as a favorable casualty ratio.
He said Ukraine was prepared to implement a full ceasefire for the duration of negotiations and proposed an all-for-all prisoner exchange as a first step toward ending the conflict.
Zelenskyy also called for the return of civilians and children taken from Ukraine during the war.
“The world has not grown tired of Ukraine, as you long hoped it would. But there is growing fatigue with Russia,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Triple-murderer Erin Patterson appealed her convictions Wednesday for poisoning four of her estranged husband’s relatives with death cap mushrooms.
Three judges of the Victoria state Court of Appeal are hearing her appeal over two days against her convictions on three counts of murder and one of attempted murder relating to a lunch of beef Wellington pastries she prepared at her rural home in Leongatha in July 2023.
Prosecutors are appealing the leniency of her sentence. The 51-year-old was sentenced in September last year to life in prison and must serve at least 33 years behind bars before she can apply for release on parole.
Prosecutors will argue at the hearing Thursday she should be sentenced for life without possibility of parole, Prosecutor Brendan Kissane said.
Defense lawyer Richard Edney’s first ground for appeal Wednesday was an error that resulted in jury members being sequestered in the same hotel as a police witness and members of the prosecution team.
“This was a very serious breach of sequestration,” Edney told the court.
Kissane said there was no evidence to support that ground.
“There was no actual contact between any juror and any other person,” Kissane said.
Another defense lawyer, Veronika Drago, said there was no evidence that Patterson had read online posts that reported death cap mushrooms had been seen near the towns of Loch and Outtrim.
The trial heard evidence from a telecommunications expert that Patterson’s phone connected to towers near Outtrim and Loch.
Drago said the evidence was that Patterson’s phone had possibly been in the area.
“That in and of itself, in our submission, illustrates just how dangerous and unfair that evidence was” on Patterson’s trial, Drago said.
Prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said the evidence showed that Patterson had an opportunity to deliberately source death cap mushrooms shortly before the lunch.
Another ground for appeal was that Prosecutor Nanette Rogers’ cross-examination of Patterson over five days had been “unfair and oppressive.”
The defense team also argued that trial judge Christopher Bale had caused “unfair prejudice” by allowing evidence from Patterson’s Facebook “friends” into the trial.
Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, was invited to the fatal lunch but did not attend.
His parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, died. Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, spent weeks in hospital, but survived.
Patterson argued during her trial that the poisoning was an accident.
Drago argued a miscarriage of justice occurred when the prosecution opened their case saying there was no evidence of a motive for the poisonings, then closed the case suggesting Patterson's animosity toward her husband's parents and the broader Patterson family was the motive.
Questioned by one of the three judges, Justice Lesley Taylor, Drago said she was not accusing prosecutors of deliberate professional misconduct.
“It is certainly not a direct allegation or suggestion of that, but what is clear in our submission from the reading of all of the material is that where things started and where it finished by the end of the prosecution case were different,” Drago said.
If Patterson's appeal succeeds, the judges could overturn her convictions and order a retrial.
Patterson did not attend court on Wednesday and watched the hearing by video in prison.
In pretrial testimony only made public after her trial, Simon Patterson said he suspected his wife had deliberately made him seriously ill with dishes. No poisons were ever found.
Erin Patterson was initially charged with three counts of attempting to murder him three times between November 2021 and September 2022. She had denied all charges.
Prosecutors dropped all charges relating to the husband before her trial began in April 2025.
This story has corrected the lawyer's name to Drago, not Vargo, throughout.
FILE - Erin Patterson is escorted away from the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 8, 2025. (Joel Carrett/AAP Image via AP, File)
