Inside Putin and Zelensky's last meeting 6 years ago - and the ceasefire they discussed

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could come face to face with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Turkey this week, but it wouldn't be the first time the world leaders have met for ceasefire negotiations. Putin has not yet confirmed whether he will attend the talks, which could be a turning point for the ongoing war in Eastern Europe, but it would also mark the second time the two presidents have sat down together. A fresh-faced and newly-elected Zelensky met Putin just months after taking office in December 2019 to discuss a smaller-scale ceasefire in eastern Ukraine after more than five years of fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas region.

Despite admitting that he had not achieved all he wanted to during the meeting six years ago, has said he will be waiting in Istanbul for Putin on Thursday amid heavy pressure from Europe and the US to reach a peace settlement.

"If Putin does not arrive and plays games, it is the final point that he does not want to end the war," the Ukrainian president said.

Zelensky and Putin met in Paris in December 2019 for the Normandy Forum Summit, a bid to end fighting in eastern Ukraine brokered by French and German diplomats.

It marked Zelensky's first in-person attempt to solve Ukraine's long-running conflict with Russia - something his predecessor Petro Poroshenko had failed to do despite numerous meetings with Putin.

Images of the summit showed Zelensky and Putin sat opposite each other at a round table, flanked on either side by French president Emmanuel Macron and former German chancellor Angela Merkel just two years before Russia's full-scale invasion.

While contemporaneous reporting suggests Zelensky was "downbeat" after the talks, wishing more had been achieved, the two sides did agree to pull troops from three areas in the Donbas and said they supported further implementation of the Minsk agreements, which were signed in 2014 and 2015.

The agreements comprised a package of measures including a ceasefire, release of prisoners of war, withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line and restoring state border control to the Ukrainian government.

While Putin said the summit was an "important step" towards de-escalating the fighting, Zelensky took a now-familiar tone during a consequent press conference, telling reporters that Ukraine wouldn't make territorial concessions in exchange for peace.

The 2019 meeting was hailed at the time as an important step towards achieving peace in the Donbas, with Macron declaring that "we didn't find the miracle solution, but we have advanced on it".

While some prisoner exchanges did take place after the summit, fundamental disagreements between Ukraine and Russia persisted in the months and years to follow - including around the withdrawal of Russian-backed troops and the validity of elections held in parts of Ukraine occupied by separatist rebels.

Despite high hopes for the 2019 talks, in hindsight they represent a blip in the decade-long conflict between the two countries, which began with Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, from which separatist forces branched out to take control of parts of eastern Ukraine shortly therafter.

Representatives from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met again in Paris in January 2022 in a further bid to end the fighting, and diplomats regrouped for crisis discussions in Berlin the following month - though none of the four world leaders were in attendence.

Just weeks later, on February 24, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In an address to the French parliament in March, Zelensky said the negotiation efforts of the Normandy Forum had been "ruined" by the escalated conflict.

In late 2022, the Ukrainian leader signed a decree stating "the impossibility of holding negotiations with Russian President Putin" and Putin himself said such talks would be "illegitimate", accusing Zelensky of lacking legitimacy.

Both leaders now appear to have changed their tune, however - suggesting they would be willing to engage in face to face talks about the war. It follows heavy pressure from US President Donald Trump and European leaders to reach a settlement after three years of fighting and hundreds of thousands of deaths in what has become Europe's deadliest war since 1945.