Kazakhstan's former President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Tuesday said he is trying to arrange a one-on-one meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Such a meeting, if it took place, would represent a breakthrough in two-way ties strained for years by armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

"Zelenskiy has already agreed to a tete-a-tete, and (I have) informed the president of Russia about that. We shall see now (if Putin agrees)," Nazarbayev told a conference on international politics in Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan.

Nazarbayev, who said he was ready to host such a meeting in the Central Asian nation, spoke to Putin by telephone Monday, his office said.

It was unclear when exactly he secured Zelenskiy's support for the idea.

The Kremlin has said the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine could this year hold their first four-way summit on the eastern Ukraine conflict in three years, but did not mention a potential one-on-one.