Donald Trump has claimed a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine won’t happen until he personally meets with Vladimir Putin, after the Russian president spurned ceasefire talks he himself instigated and refused to send even senior ministers to the negotiations.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin’s failure to attend talks in Turkey showed he was not ready for peace, as he called on the Russian leader to “demonstrate leadership” if he was serious about ending the invasion Moscow started in 2022. President Zelensky said a senior Ukrainian delegation, including the defence minister, Rustem Umerov, would be sent to Istanbul for talks.
However, he called the second-tier Russian representatives a “dummy delegation” and a “prop” for Putin – adding later that the team he was sending would better match that ambition.
“If we don’t see that demonstration, then it means they are not ready to talk about the end of the war,” the Ukrainian president said after meeting the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara. “It means they lack political will.” In contrast, he added, “I am here, we are ready for direct negotiations.”
The talks will be the first direct discussions between Kyiv and Moscow since a previous attempt in Turkey in 2022.
“We demonstrate with our presence, and our level, that we want to put an end to war quickly,” Mr Zelensky continued.
The talks were proposed by Putin “without any preconditions”, spurring the US president to urge Mr Zelensky to meet Putin. Mr Trump even suggested during the week that he could attend the meeting.
But late on Wednesday, the Kremlin released a list of delegates that did not include the Russian president. On Thursday, the Kremlin confirmed that Putin wouldn’t be in Istanbul and had no plans to travel to Turkey.
“We can’t be running around the world looking for Putin,” Zelensky said. “I feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation – this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump,” the Ukrainian leader added.
When asked whether he was disappointed about the seniority of the Russian delegation sent to Turkey, Mr Trump said he knew nothing about who Putin had sent.
“Look, nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together,” Mr Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on his way to the United Arab Emirates.
“He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there. And I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together, but we’re going to have to get it solved, because too many people are dying.”
While the diplomatic fiasco unfolded in Turkey, the conflict continued, with Moscow claiming to have seized two villages in eastern Ukraine, and Kyiv reporting Russia had launched fresh attacks in the Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Sir Keir Starmer said the Russian president’s decision to snub negotiations was evidence that “it’s Putin who is dragging his feet”.
“It is Putin who is causing the delay in a ceasefire. Ukraine has long been clear, several months ago now, that they would have a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, and we have long said that it’s Putin who is standing in the way of that peace,” he said during a visit to Albania on Thursday.
Ukraine’s defence minister is leading the country’s delegation, while Putin has not even sent senior ministers but rather “stand-in props”, Mr Zelensky said.
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.
Mr Medinsky, whose career has been built on his ultra-patriotic slant on Russian history, led the last round of direct negotiations with Ukraine in 2022.
He told Russian state TV on Thursday that the Kremlin team was prepared to discuss possible compromises with Kyiv. “The delegation is determined to be constructive, to search for possible solutions and common ground. The task of direct negotiations with the Ukrainian side is sooner or later to achieve long-term peace by eliminating the basic root causes of the conflict,” he said.
Asked if Putin would join talks at some future point, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “What kind of participation will be required further, at what level, it is too early to say now.”
Mr Zelensky said the first step was an unconditional ceasefire. “Our group ... will go to Istanbul tomorrow. We will be constructive,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader also signalled he was not willing to cede Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
“Crimea is part of Ukraine,” he said.
But Moscow is looking to push terms it first pitched in the failed 2022 talks that include limiting the size and capability of Ukraine’s military, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s latest assessment.
