Zelenskyy Flew to Baku and Offered to Meet Putin There. The Market Gives It Less Than 1% Odds by April 30.
What happened
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first visit to Azerbaijan since Russia's 2022 invasion, meeting with President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on April 25. He signed six bilateral agreements covering security cooperation, the defense-industrial complex, energy, and humanitarian aid, including the possibility of joint military production. Zelenskyy stated that he is ready to hold trilateral talks with Russia and the United States in Azerbaijan, with Baku as mediator. He conditioned the meeting on Russia demonstrating genuine readiness for diplomacy. The Kremlin had previously rejected any meeting outside Moscow. Prediction markets currently price a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire by April 30 at less than 1 percent, and by May 31 at 5 percent.
Zelenskyy is in Baku signing weapons cooperation agreements and calling for talks with the country that is supplying weapons to kill Ukrainians. This is not a contradiction. It is a strategy: Azerbaijan is useful precisely because it is talking to everyone.
Prediction Markets
Prices as of 2026-04-25 — the analysis was written against these odds
The Hidden Bet
Azerbaijan is a neutral mediator
Azerbaijan sold weapons to Russia throughout the invasion and shares a close relationship with Moscow through the Commonwealth of Independent States and energy infrastructure. Aliyev is not neutral. He is balancing, which is not the same thing. Ukraine's willingness to sign military cooperation agreements with Azerbaijan while proposing it as a mediator reveals that Kyiv is accepting this imbalance as the cost of using Baku's unique relationships.
Putin's refusal to meet outside Moscow signals he does not want talks
The Moscow condition may be about framing, not substance. A meeting in Moscow signals Russia's power position. A meeting in Baku or any third country signals parity. If Putin eventually agrees to talks, the venue will tell you what the outcome is designed to look like before any agenda item is discussed.
A ceasefire requires Zelenskyy and Putin in the same room
The most durable ceasefires in modern conflict have been negotiated by proxies or through intermediary frameworks before leaders meet. Zelenskyy's Baku proposal may be intended to establish the framework rather than produce the meeting. If Aliyev begins shuttling between Kyiv and Moscow, the summit offer will have served its purpose regardless of whether it happens.
The Real Disagreement
The real fork is whether Ukraine has more to lose from talking or from not talking. Ukraine's Western supporters want a negotiated end that preserves enough of Ukraine's territorial and political independence to be defensible domestically. Russia wants a settlement that locks in its 2026 gains and prevents Ukraine from joining NATO. Those two positions are not currently compatible at any table. The market pricing of 5 percent by May 31 is not reflecting insufficient diplomatic effort. It is reflecting the absence of a mutually acceptable ZOPA, a zone of possible agreement. Zelenskyy's Baku offer is genuine in the sense that he would accept talks. It is not genuine in the sense that there is no deal available that both sides could say yes to right now. The gesture costs Ukraine little and demonstrates to its Western backers that Kyiv is not the obstacle.
What No One Is Saying
Aliyev is getting weapons cooperation agreements from Ukraine, access to the global stage as a peace mediator, and continued energy and trade relationships with Russia, all at the same time. Azerbaijan has more to gain from the war continuing than from a ceasefire, because the war is what makes Baku's multipolarity valuable. A ceasefire would normalize everything and Aliyev's unique bridging position disappears.
Who Pays
Ukrainian soldiers and civilians
Ongoing
Every week of continued fighting at current casualty rates costs roughly 2,000-3,000 Ukrainian deaths and injuries. Diplomatic gestures that signal flexibility without producing a deal extend the timeline of those losses.
Trump administration
Immediate political cost; structural pressure intensifies toward summer
Trump committed to ending the war quickly. The 5% ceasefire market says the market does not believe it. Every failed diplomatic initiative is a reminder that the promise was not underwritten by leverage.
Non-aligned countries being courted by both sides
Medium-term structural effect on international coalition-building
If Azerbaijan successfully positions itself as the indispensable mediator, other middle powers will copy the model: offer partial support to both sides, never choose, and extract maximum diplomatic rent from the ambiguity. This reduces the cost of not choosing a side in a major war.
Scenarios
Shuttle diplomacy begins
Aliyev agrees to carry a formal proposal from Zelenskyy to Moscow. Putin does not publicly reject it. Low-level Russian and Ukrainian technical officials meet in Baku on a narrow agenda item, probably prisoner exchanges. No ceasefire results but the channel is open.
Signal Aliyev visits Moscow within 30 days of the Baku summit
Kremlin public rejection
Russia formally declines the Baku proposal, citing the need for talks to occur in Moscow or via direct bilateral channel without third-party involvement. Zelenskyy uses the rejection to reassert the Kremlin's intransigence to European partners and secure additional military commitments.
Signal Kremlin spokesperson issues a formal statement rejecting the Baku framework within two weeks
US-brokered parallel track
The Trump administration uses the Baku offer as an opening to push its own ceasefire framework, bypassing Aliyev and proposing American-mediated talks in a neutral Gulf state. This displaces Azerbaijan's mediator role but achieves Ukraine's goal of US engagement.
Signal State Department announces a formal US-mediated Ukraine-Russia contact group
What Would Change This
If Russia indicates willingness to discuss territorial arrangements that leave Ukraine with meaningful sovereignty over any portion of its pre-2022 territory, the 5 percent ceasefire probability would need to be revised upward. Russia's current public position demands recognition of all occupied territory as Russian. Until that position moves, the market is right.