Russia and Ukraine yesterday held their first direct peace talks in three years in Istanbul for Turkish-brokered negotiations, but officials and observers expected them to yield little immediate progress on stopping the war.
A Ukrainian delegation led by Ukrainian Minister of Defense 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 President Volodymyr Zelenskiy 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.
Photo: AFP, Turkish Foreign Ministry
Although expectations for a possible Putin-Zelenskiy meeting were low, the apparent lack of traction in peace efforts frustrated hopes of bold steps being taken toward reaching a settlement.
The two sides are far apart in their conditions for ending the war, and US President Donald Trump on Thursday said that a meeting between himself and Putin was crucial to breaking the deadlock.
Trump yesterday said a meeting with Putin would happen “as soon as we can set it up.”
“I think it’s time for us to just do it,” Trump told reporters in Abu Dhabi.
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.
After Putin did not take up Zelenskiy’s challenge to sit down with him, the Ukrainian president said Moscow was 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, Zelenskiy said he sent a team headed by his defense minister to the meeting to show Trump that Ukraine is determined to press ahead with peace efforts, despite Russian foot-dragging.
The Russian delegation includes three other senior officials, with Putin appointing four lower-level officials as “experts” for the talks.
A senior Ukrainian official said Kyiv’s delegation had a “real mandate” to engage in substantive talks, while casting doubt on Russia’s readiness to negotiate in good faith.
“Everything depends on whether Russians are ready and have the necessary mandate or is this just Putin sending low-level representatives in order to stall the process,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “We will discover this very soon when delegations meet.”
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