Will Zelenskyy and Putin speak?

The core fact pattern points to a low-probability event, but not a vanishing one. Zelenskyy has publicly said he is willing to meet Putin if Putin is present at a major summit, and Putin’s side has not foreclosed contact in principle. That matters because this kind of meeting usually requires only a small number of political and logistical conditions to align: a venue, a reason for both leaders to attend, and enough prearrangement to make the encounter useful or at least tolerable. If a high-profile gathering such as a G20 summit or a U.S.-mediated diplomatic event proceeds with both leaders in attendance, an interaction becomes plausible even without a fully formal bilateral framework.

Against that, the barriers are substantial. The Kremlin has repeatedly resisted venues outside Moscow, while Ukraine will not accept Moscow as a setting, and neither side appears close to bridging that gap. A true bilateral meeting is also harder than parallel or trilateral talks, because both leaders would need to absorb the domestic and strategic risk of giving the other side a symbolic win. The last in-person meeting was in 2019, which underscores how much has to change for even a brief encounter to happen. In practical terms, the most likely path is not a carefully negotiated summit meeting, but an opportunistic side interaction at a multilateral event or a last-minute diplomatic convergence that is hard to predict this far out.

Compared with the current market price of 11%, I think the market is somewhat too bearish. The “Yes” case is still a minority outcome, but the combination of continued public signaling, active diplomacy, and the existence of a concrete late-2026 summit scenario means 11% understates the number of ways this could happen. I would not price it dramatically higher because the venue dispute and mutual distrust are real, but there is enough optionality here to justify a modest premium over the market.