Putin not named in Russian delegation for Ukraine talks: Kremlin
Vladimir Putin has called for direct Moscow-Kyiv talks but it's unclear if he or Donald Trump will travel to Turkey to meet Volodymyr Zelensky
The Kremlin left President Vladimir Putin off its list for talks in Turkey on Thursday with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, instead naming a lower level team for the first direct Russia-Ukraine contacts on their conflict in more than three years.
Zelensky had challenged Putin to meet him in person at the talks, with U.S. President Donald Trump also appearing to urge the Kremlin leader to come to the negotiating table.
The Istanbul negotiations would be the first direct peace talks since discussions in the first weeks of the conflict broke down without a deal.
After days of declining to say if Putin would go, the Kremlin named its negotiating team late on Wednesday.
The Russian side will be headed by Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline aide to Putin and ex-culture minister who was involved in 2022 negotiations.
Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov -- who had all been rumored as top negotiators after leading previous talks with the United States -- were not named in the delegation.
Zelenskyy said this week that Putin's absence would be a clear signal that he was not genuinely interested in peace.
"I am waiting to see who will arrive from Russia. Then I will decide what steps Ukraine should take," Zelensky said Wednesday.
Trump on Wednesday offered to go to Turkey if Putin also showed up.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected in Istanbul on Friday for part of the talks.
Medinsky is seen as influential in advancing Russia's historical claims over swathes of Ukraine and has written text-books advancing a nationalist view of Russian history that has been questioned by independent historians.
The other three negotiators were named as Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin and Igor Kostyukov, director of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.
Putin last weekend proposed direct negotiations and had come under intense international pressure -- including from some allies -- to meet with Zelenskyy.
Trump floated the idea of mediating if Putin attended.
"I don't know that he (Putin) would be there if I'm not there," Trump told reporters while on his Middle East tour. "I know he would like me to be there, and that's a possibility. If we could end the war, I'd be thinking about that."
He said he had a packed schedule but added: "That doesn't mean I wouldn't do it to save a lot of lives."
Zelenskyy said this week that Putin skipping the talks would signal an unwillingness to seek peace and should be met with massive Western sanctions and more military aid for Kyiv.
"This is his war," Zelenskyy said Tuesday. "Therefore, the negotiations should be with him."
Trump took office vowing to quickly end the conflict, but has voiced frustration with both Ukraine and Russia over the lack of progress.
Moscow has in recent weeks snubbed several calls, backed by Ukraine, for an initial 30-day ceasefire.
Despite the prospect of talks, the two sides' positions on how the fighting should end remain far apart and there have been few signs either is willing to make concessions.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who in the past criticized the level of Western support for Ukraine, urged Putin to attend in person in a phone call on Wednesday, his office said.
"It costs me nothing to say, 'hey, comrade Putin, go to Istanbul and negotiate, dammit'" Lula said ahead of the call.
European leaders also pressed Putin to travel to Turkey.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that there must not be any settlement in Ukraine in the form of a "dictated peace" from Moscow.
Addressing parliament, Merz warned of "militarily created facts against Ukraine's will", telling lawmakers it was "of paramount importance that the political West does not allow itself to be divided".
Amid preparations for the talks, fighting continued to rage. A Russian missile strike on Ukraine's northeastern city of Sumy killed at least three people on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said.
© 2025 AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
2 hours ago
- Japan Times
Group of Seven tries to avoid Trump conflict by scrapping joint communique
Group of Seven nations won't try to reach a consensus on a joint communique at next week's leaders' summit in Canada, people familiar with the matter said, an acknowledgment of the wide gulf that separates the U.S. from the other members on Ukraine, climate change and other issues. In place of a single document, G7 leaders are likely to release standalone joint leaders' statements on various topics, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. That approach is the preference of the Canadian hosts, they said. Prime Minister Mark Carney is looking to ease tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump and push forward with talks about trade and security. Agreeing on a final communique is usually a ritual for leaders gathered at meetings such as the G7 summit. While the document has no legal authority, it amounts to a statement of principles and is intended to display unity among the participants on topics of global importance. The communique from last year's summit, for example, was 36 pages long and included pledges to support Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, tackle climate change and foster gender equality. But Trump has upended U.S. policy on all those issues and many more, declining to voice support for Ukraine over Russia, scrapping climate-change initiatives and dismissing gender initiatives as part of a "woke' agenda by Democrats. Carney wants to avoid a repeat of 2018, the last time Canada hosted the G7 leaders, when Trump pulled out of the joint communique hours after signing it because he was annoyed by comments made to reporters by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In addition to trade, the leaders of the group of wealthy economies — the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada — are set to discuss artificial intelligence, energy security, wildfires and global conflicts, including in Ukraine and the Middle East. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will join the summit, along with the leaders of India, Brazil, Mexico and others. Following the 2018 meeting, final documents tended to be shorter so that they were less time-consuming to negotiate but also included less text that members could disagree with, said Caitlin Welsh, who served in Trump's first administration. "Moving forward to this year's G-7 summit, today the Trump administration almost certainly believes that no deal is better than a bad deal, and it continues to prefer a back-to-basics approach to the G-7,' Welsh said at a briefing held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The Trump administration last time around believed that the G-7 had strayed from its original purpose, which was to promote global economic stability and growth,' she said, adding that Carney's agenda "appears to stick to traditional G-7 principles.'
Japan Times
3 hours ago
- Japan Times
Russia hits Ukraine's Kharkiv with deadly nighttime barrage of drones
A concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine's second largest city of Kharkiv in the middle of the night killed six people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday. The overnight attack followed Russia's two biggest air assaults of the war on Ukraine this week, part of intensified bombardments that Moscow says are retaliatory measures for Kyiv's recent attacks in Russia. Elsewhere, two southern Ukrainian regions, Mykolaiv and Kherson, were left without electricity on Wednesday after Russian forces attacked an energy facility, the governors said. Kharkiv, in Ukraine's northeast, withstood Russia's full-scale advance in the early days of the war but has since been a regular target of drone, missile and guided aerial bomb assaults. Prosecutors in Kharkiv region said on the Telegram messaging app that the death toll had risen to six as rescue teams pulled bodies from under the rubble. They said three people were still believed to be trapped. The intense strikes by 17 drones on Kharkiv sparked fires in 15 units of a five-storey apartment building and caused other damage in the city close to the Russian border, the city's mayor Ihor Terekhov said. "There are direct hits on multi-storey buildings, private homes, playgrounds, enterprises and public transport," Terekhov said on the Telegram messaging app. "Every new day now brings new despicable blows from Russia, and almost every blow is telling. Russia deserves increased pressure; with literally every blow it strikes against ordinary life, it proves that the pressure is not enough," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram. A witness saw emergency rescuers helping to carry people out of damaged buildings and administering care, while firefighters battled blazes in the dark. Nine of the injured, including a 2-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, have been hospitalized, Oleh Sinehubov, the governor of the broader Kharkiv region, said on Telegram. In total, the Ukrainian military said Russia had launched 85 drones overnight, 40 of which were shot down. In the southern Kherson region, workers were trying to restore electricity supplies after Russian forces attacked what its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said was "an important energy facility." "It is currently impossible to predict the duration of the work. Residents of the region, I ask you to show understanding and prepare for a prolonged power outage," he said on the Telegram messenger. The governor of the neighboring Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, said his region was also experiencing emergency shutdowns but that power would soon be restored. Kherson region directly borders a war zone and is under daily drone, missile and artillery attack. The Mykolaiv region faces mainly missile and drone attacks. There was no immediate comment from Russia on the latest overnight attacks. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched on its smaller neighbor in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
NHK
6 hours ago
- NHK
Russia, Ukraine hand over bodies of dead soldiers
Russia and Ukraine have returned the bodies of slain soldiers to each other based on an agreement at direct talks. Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday that Russia has sent back the bodies of 1,212 people. They said the bodies were of soldiers who died in the western Russian region of Kursk, the four Ukrainian regions that Russia unilaterally annexed, and elsewhere. The authorities are trying to identify the bodies. Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky said Moscow received 27 sets of remains. Russia and Ukraine held direct talks between senior officials in Istanbul on June 2. They agreed to exchange prisoners of war and hand over 6,000 bodies each. Over the bodies' return, however, both side criticized each other's response, delaying the handover. The two countries have already started exchanging POWs. The return on Monday and Tuesday involved seriously wounded soldiers and those under the age of 25. But a path to a ceasefire remains unclear. Ukraine suffered attacks by Russian drones across the country from Tuesday through Wednesday morning. At least three people were killed and more than 60 others were injured in Kharkiv.
