Ahead of talks, Zelenskyy says Russia not serious

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a second-tier team of negotiators to hold peace talks with Ukraine in Turkiye on Thursday, spurning Kyiv’s challenge to go there in person to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Putin’s no-show plunged prospects for the talks — which would be the first since the early weeks of the war — into confusion. Russia said they would take place in Istanbul in the second half of the day, but Turkiye said no meeting was scheduled yet.

US President Trump told reporters there would be no movement on peace talks in the absence of a meeting between himself and Putin.

“Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One before landing in Dubai. His comment seemed to further undermine the potential for diplomatic progress in Turkiye.

Washington has threatened repeatedly to abandon its mediation efforts unless there is clear progress. Zelenskyy, arriving in Ankara, described the Russian line-up of Putin aides and deputy ministers as “decorative”.

Russia said its forces had captured two more settlements in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. A spokeswoman for Russian FM Lavrov pointedly reminded reporters of his comment last year that Ukraine was “getting smaller” in the absence of an agreement to stop fighting.

There was confusion in Istanbul, where some 200 reporters were gathered near the Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus that the Russians had specified as the talks venue. Zelenskyy had goaded Putin earlier this week by questioning if he was brave enough to show up. The Kremlin says Putin — who is also under threat of even tighter European sanctions to “suffocate” Russia’s economy — does not respond to ultimatums.

The warring sides last held face-to-face talks — also in Istanbul — in March 2022, only weeks after Putin sent his army into Ukraine.

Later in the day, Zelenskyy said he would send a team headed by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov to Istanbul for peace talks with a Russian delegation. Zelenskyy told a news conference in the Turkish capital Ankara that the Russian delegation doesn't include “anyone who actually makes decisions.” But he said that to demonstrate to Trump that Ukraine is seeking an end to the 3-year-old war that he had decided to send officials from Ankara to Istanbul for the meeting.

With Russian forces now in control of close to a fifth of Ukraine, Putin has held fast to his longstanding demands for Kyiv to cede territory, abandon its NATO membership ambitions and become a neutral country. Ukraine rejects these terms as tantamount to capitulation, and seeks guarantees of its future security.

NATO assembles in Turkiye

Germany on Thursday backed Trump’s demand to more than double NATO’s defence spending target to 5% of GDP. Germany’s new FM Johann Wadephul said this at at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in the Turkish city of Antalya, where defence spending was high on the agenda. NATO chief Mark Rutte has proposed a two-pronged approach, suggesting allies spend 3.5% of their GDP on defence and dedicate a further 1.5% to security infra and cyber security.