The chances of a breakthrough for peace in Ukraine have dropped after Moscow sent a low-level team to negotiate with a Kyiv delegation in Turkey.
Two days ago, the prospect of a three-way meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had raised hopes of a major step forward in the negotiations.
But then, the Kremlin revealed that Putin wouldn’t be attending and the Russian delegation would instead be led by his aide, Vladimir Medinsky. Soon afterwards, Trump confirmed he would not be travelling to Istanbul - and said there will be no peace in Ukraine before he and Mr Putin “get together”.
Despite the presidential no-shows, delegations from Kyiv and Moscow are meeting in Turkey on Friday for the first direct talks since March 2022.
It comes amid a backdrop of Russia’s repeated rejection of Ukraine’s calls for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, insisting that its maximalist demands, which include the effective ending of Ukraine’s sovereignty, have not been addressed.
The return of Trump to the White House has forced the two sides to the negotiating table, after more than three years of war and around a million people killed or wounded, but their differences appear still to be irreconcilable.
What have Trump, Putin and Zelensky said?
Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have found themselves in a diplomatic standoff over the proposed direct talks.
After Putin called for direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow over the weekend, Mr Zelensky said he was ready to meet face-to-face with the Russian president in Istanbul.
Then on Wednesday night, an official list of delegates was released: Adviser Vladimir Medinsky; deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin, who took part in the last talks held between the two sides in 2022 in the weeks following Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbour; and Igor Kostyukov, director of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the GRU, Russia's Foreign Military Intelligence Agency. Putin’s name was absent.
The Ukrainian president was the most vocal about attending. He wrote on social media earlier this week that he supported Trump’s calls for direct talks with Putin, and flew to Ankara for talks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan while challenging Putin to meet with him.
“I am here, we are ready for direct negotiations,” he said in a press conference on Thursday. Kyiv insists that Putin is the only decision-maker in Moscow.
Donald Trump, who had first proposed the face-to-face meeting between the leaders who last met in 2019, said earlier he was “thinking about flying over”.
But on Friday, shortly before returning to Washington after a three-nation tour of the Middle East, Trump said he knew Putin would only have gone if he did.
“I said, you know, they all said Putin was going, Zelensky was going. And I said, If I don't go, I guarantee Putin [won’t be] going,” Trump said, but added it was “time for us to just do it” and get a ceasefire worked out.
“We’ve got to get it done. 5000 young people are being killed every single week on average, and we're going to get it done.”
Who is confirmed to be attending?
The highly anticipated talks to settle the war in Ukraine are being held at the Dolmabahce Palace in Turkey.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio is in Turkey for a critical day of international diplomacy, but he won’t be playing a direct role in the talks.
Instead, Michael Anton, the US director for policy planning, will represent the US in talks between Ukraine and Russia, a US state department spokesperson has told the BBC.
It’s another blow for Mr Zelensky, who had hoped that by sending a higher-level delegation defence minister Rustem Umerov than the Russian side - and offering to meet Putin directly - would reveal to Washington that Moscow is not serious about peace.
The White House appears to have accepted Moscow’s decision not to send a high-level delegation to the talks, itself sending a lower-level representative into the room.
Mr Zelensky has tasked defence minister Rustem Umerov to lead the Ukrainian delegation would be sent to Ukraine.
The Russian team is being led by former culture minister and presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, accompanied by the deputy defence and foreign ministers and the director of Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency.
A source from the Turkish foreign ministry confirmed that talks would unfold in “different formats”, with trilateral meetings between Ukraine, Russia and Turkey scheduled, as well as separate discussions involving the US, Ukraine and Turkey.
Trump said he still planned to meet up with Putin “as soon as we can set it up”.
What are the chances of a deal to end the war?
Few are optimistic about the talks. While the Trump administration says it is positive that the two countries are sitting down for talks after three years, the reality of their irreconcilable positions remains.
Putin insists that Ukraine must effectively disarm, abandon its bid to join Nato, and cede four regions, including parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that are not controlled by Russia.
Ukraine and its Western allies insist that this amounts to attempts to remove the country’s sovereignty and leave Kyiv weakened while facing the possibility of a second Russian invasion.
Moscow also wants Ukraine to recognise the Crimean peninsula as Russian, a red line that Kyiv says it will never do. Putin illegally annexed the peninsula, which borders Russia in the Black Sea, in 2014 following pro-European and pro-democracy protests on mainland Ukraine.
Ukraine’s European partners, including the UK, have insisted that Russia must agree to a ceasefire before any truce is negotiated. If Putin refuses, they will slap additional sanctions on Moscow.
Russia has responded by saying it will not respond to threats.
The last face-to-face peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, held in Turkey in March 2022, broke down without any agreement.
Russia also declined to renew a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to allow Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea in the summer of 2023, a year after it was agreed.
There have been dozens of ceasefires and peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in the wake of Putin’s initial invasion in 2014 after the ousting of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. None of them materialised into a substantial agreement.
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