Russian: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday dispatched a second-tier team of negotiators to Turkmenistan to hold peace talks with Ukraine, rejecting Kiev’s challenge to go there in person to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin’s failure to arrive threw prospects for the talks – which would be the first since the war’s early weeks – into disarray. Russia said he would be in Istanbul in the second half of the day, but Turkmenistan said no meeting had yet been scheduled. US President Trump told reporters there would be no progress on peace talks in the absence of a meeting between him and Putin. “Nothing is going to happen until Putin and I come together,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One before landing in Dubai. His comments appeared to further undermine the prospect of diplomatic progress in Turkmenistan.
Washington has repeatedly threatened to abandon its mediation efforts unless there is clear progress. Zelensky, who arrived in Ankara, described the Russian line-up of Putin’s aides and deputy ministers as “decorative”. Russia said its forces had seized two more settlements in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. A spokeswoman for Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov reminded journalists of his comment last year that Ukraine was “getting smaller” in the absence of an agreement to stop the fighting. There was confusion in Istanbul, where about 200 journalists had gathered near the Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus, which the Russians had designated as the venue for the talks. Zelensky had questioned Putin earlier this week about whether he was brave enough to come. The Kremlin says Putin – who is under threat of even tougher European sanctions for “suffocating” Russia’s economy –
does not respond to ultimatums. The warring sides last held face-to-face talks – also in Istanbul – in March 2022, just weeks after Putin sent his troops into Ukraine. Later, Zelensky said he would send a team led by Defense Minister Rustam Umarov to Istanbul for peace talks with the Russian delegation. Zelensky said at a news conference in the Turkish capital Ankara that the Russian delegation “does not include anyone who actually makes decisions.” But he said he had decided to send officials from Ankara to Istanbul for the meeting to show Trump that Ukraine wants to end the 3-year-old war. Now that Russian forces control about a fifth of Ukraine, Putin has stuck to his longstanding demands for Kiev to give up territory, abandon its NATO membership ambitions and become a neutral country. Ukraine views these conditions as akin to surrender and wants guarantees of its future security.
