Delegations from Russia, Ukraine set to hold their first peace talks in 3 years
Russia and Ukraine are due to hold their first direct peace talks in three years on Friday, gathering in Istanbul for Turkish-brokered negotiations, but officials and observers expect them to yield little immediate progress on stopping the more than three-year war.
A Ukrainian delegation led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov was due to meet with a low-level Russian team headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.
The latest push to end the fighting got off to a rocky start on Thursday, when Russian President Vladimir Putin spurned an offer by Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet face-to-face. Delegations from the two countries also flew to different Turkish cities and put together teams of significantly different diplomatic heft for possible talks.
Although expectations for a possible Putin-Zelenskyy meeting were low, the apparent lack of traction in peace efforts frustrated hopes of bold steps being taken in Turkiye toward reaching a settlement.
The two sides are far apart in their conditions for ending the war, and US President Donald Trump said on Thursday during a trip to the Middle East that a meeting between him and Putin was crucial to breaking the deadlock.
Ukraine has accepted a US and European proposal for a full, 30-day ceasefire, but Putin has effectively rejected it by imposing far-reaching conditions.
Meanwhile, Russian forces are preparing a fresh military offensive, Ukrainian government and Western military analysts say.
After Putin didn’t take up Zelenskyy’s challenge to sit down with him in the Turkish capital on Thursday, the Ukrainian president accused Moscow of not making a serious effort to end the war by sending a low-level negotiating team that he described as “a theater prop.” Even so, Zelenskyy said that he was sending a team headed by his defense minister to Friday’s meeting in Istanbul. That would show Trump that Ukraine is determined to press ahead with peace efforts despite Russian foot-dragging, Zelenskyy said, amid intense diplomatic maneuvering by Kyiv and Moscow.
The Russian delegation also includes three other senior officials, the Kremlin said. Putin also appointed four lower-level officials as “experts” for the talks.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would confer Friday in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and the Ukrainian delegation, adding that the Russian delegation would be meeting with other members of the US team and that he hoped all sides could get together.
“We don’t have high expectations of what will happen tomorrow. And frankly, at this point, I think it’s abundantly clear that the only way we’re going to have a breakthrough here is between President Trump and President Putin,” Rubio told reporters Thursday in Antalya, Turkiye.
Zelenskyy, meantime, flew to Albania to attend a meeting of European political leaders Friday.
