Russia and Ukraine will meet in Türkiye without Putin or Zelensky.

MoscowRussia and Ukraine will finally meet in Istanbul, after hours of suspense in which the talks hung in the balance. They have not yet confirmed when they will begin or the exact format, but it could be either this Thursday night or Friday. After Vladimir Putin refused to travel to Türkiye To meet with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president did not reveal until this afternoon whether or not he would send a delegation to the negotiations with Moscow. He will not participate; the delegation will be led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.

At a press conference in Ankara after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Zelensky lamented that the Kremlin "was not taking the talks seriously" by sending representatives with little political weight. "Out of respect for Trump, we will send a delegation," he added, although he asserted that the low profile of the Russian envoys is a "lack of respect," not only for him, but also for the presidents of the United States and Turkey.

Furthermore, the Ukrainian leader doubts the decision-making power of Putin's emissaries. "We need to understand the level of the Russian delegation, what their mandate is, and whether they are capable of making decisions on their own, because we all know who makes the decisions in Russia," he said. In response from Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called him "pathetic." Lavrov's spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said: "A clown and a loser are talking about honorable people."

Trump's push was instrumental in preventing Zelensky from abandoning the Russian delegation. The US president once again distanced himself from the Western position of strength and avoided attacking Putin for not going to Turkey or for sending second-stringers to the talks. In fact, he was understanding of Putin's absence. "Why should he go if I'm not there?" he asked. in front of journalists in Qatar. Later, before landing in Dubai, he added that there would be no progress in the peace talks on Ukraine until he meets with the Kremlin leader.

The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinski, appeared after Zelensky's accusations in an attempt to make clear his autonomy and decision-making capacity. This Ukrainian, who was already the negotiator with Ukraine in the Istanbul talks in March 2022, is the current president of the Russian Writers' Union, a former Minister of Culture, and one of the ideologues of Putin's historical revisionism, as well as one of his most loyal collaborators. He was the architect of the rewriting of history textbooks to justify the invasion of Ukraine, even calling the neighboring country a "historical ghost," and subscribes to the idea that Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are one people and that their separation was artificial and harmful to millions of families.

In a two-and-a-half-minute written statement, he asserted that the delegation "has been approved by order of President Putin and has all the necessary powers and competences to conduct negotiations." He also insisted on the mantra that the Russian delegation's will is "to establish, sooner or later, a long-term peace by eliminating the root causes of the conflict," that is, the removal of Zelensky, the imposition of a Kremlin-friendly government, the demilitarization of Ukraine, and its neutral status.

Irreconcilable Starting Points

Both countries propose objectives that are difficult to reconcile, which offer little cause for optimism regarding possible progress in the talks. According to Medinski, it is necessary to build on the Istanbul negotiations of three years ago, which ended in failure. Those documents, discussed before the Ukrainian counteroffensives of the summer of 2022, with the Russian army occupying much more territory than it does now, implied de facto Ukraine's capitulation: they limited the size of the army and did not guarantee its security in the event of a new Russian invasion. "Appropriate sanctions." The European allies have taken up the challenge and They have threatened to toughen sanctions if the meeting in Istanbul does not produce a Russian commitment to halt the fighting. From Antalya, also in Turkey, where the NATO foreign ministers met, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot spoke of "massive sanctions," while German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul warned Putin that he is "pushing too far."

Early Thursday morning, hours before the talks, Russia fired 110 drones at the Ukrainian regions of Kiev, Sumy, Dnipro, Poltava, and Ivano-Frankivsk. The Ukrainian president also reiterated that they do not want to discuss the transfer of the occupied territories, including the Crimean peninsula. "Crimea is Ukrainian; we do not recognize it as Russian. We cannot discuss territorial issues," he asserted.