Peace breakthrough unlikely as Putin declines to meet Zelenskyy in Turkey
By Tom Balmforth, Vladimir Soldatkin and Huseyin Hayatsever
Russia's Vladimir Putin spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkey on Thursday, instead sending a second-tier delegation to planned peace talks, while Ukraine's president said his defense minister would head up Kyiv's team.
They will be the first direct talks between the sides since March 2022, but hopes of a major breakthrough were further dented by U.S. President Donald Trump who said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Putin.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later echoed that view, telling reporters in the Turkish resort of Antalya that Washington "didn't have high expectations" for the Ukraine talks in Istanbul.
Zelenskyy said Putin's decision not to attend but to send what he called a "decorative" line-up showed the Russian leader was not serious about ending the war. Russia accused Ukraine of trying "to put on a show" around the talks.
It was not clear when the talks would actually begin.
"We can't be running around the world looking for Putin," Zelenskyy said after meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
"I feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation - this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump," Zelenskyy told reporters.
Zelenskyy said he himself would also not now go to Istanbul and that his team's mandate was to discuss a ceasefire.
Ukraine backs an immediate, unconditional 30-day ceasefire but Putin has said he first wants to start talks at which the details of such a truce could be discussed. More than three years after its full-scale invasion, Russia has the advantage on the battlefield and says Ukraine could use a pause in the war to call up extra troops and acquire more Western weapons.
Both Trump and Putin have said for months they are keen to meet each other, but no date has been set. Trump, after piling heavy pressure on Ukraine and clashing with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February, has lately expressed growing impatience that Putin may be "tapping me along".
"Nothing's going to happen until Putin and I get together," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Rubio, speaking in the Turkish resort of Antalya, later echoed that: "It's my assessment that I don't think we're going to have a breakthrough here until the President (Trump) and President Putin interact directly on this topic."
Referring to the current state of the talks as a "logjam", Rubio said he would travel to Istanbul to meet with Turkey's foreign minister and with Ukraine's delegation on Friday.
DIPLOMATIC CONFUSION
The diplomatic disarray was symptomatic of the deep hostility between the warring sides and the unpredictability injected by Trump, whose interventions since returning to the White House in January have often provoked dismay from Ukraine and its European allies.
While Zelenskyy waited in vain for Putin in Ankara, the Russian negotiating team sat in Istanbul with no one to talk to on the Ukrainian side. Some 200 reporters milled around near the Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus that the Russians had specified as the talks venue.
The enemies have been wrestling for months over the logistics of ceasefires and peace talks while trying to show Trump they are serious about trying to end what he calls "this stupid war".
Hundreds of thousands have been killed and wounded on both sides in the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two. Washington has threatened repeatedly to abandon its mediation efforts unless there is clear progress.
Asked if Putin would join talks at some future point, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "What kind of participation will be required further, at what level, it is too early to say now."
Russia said on Thursday its forces had captured two more settlements in Ukraine's Donetsk region. A spokeswoman for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointedly reminded reporters of his comment last year that Ukraine was "getting smaller" in the absence of an agreement to stop fighting.
FIRST TALKS FOR THREE YEARS
Once they start, the talks will have to address a chasm between the two sides over a host of issues.
The Russian delegation is headed by presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, a former culture minister who has overseen the rewriting of history textbooks to reflect Moscow's narrative on the war. It includes a deputy defense minister, a deputy foreign minister and the head of military intelligence.
Key members of the team, including its leader, were also involved in the last direct peace talks in Istanbul in March 2022 - and Medinsky confirmed on Thursday that Russia saw the new talks as a resumption of those interrupted three years ago.
"The task of direct negotiations with the Ukrainian side is sooner or later to achieve long-term peace by eliminating the basic root causes of the conflict," said Medinsky.
The terms under discussion in 2022, when Ukraine was still reeling from Russia's initial invasion, would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They included a demand by Moscow for deep cuts to the size of Ukraine's military.
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 is seeking guarantees of its future security from world powers, especially the United States.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Nikkei Asia
13 minutes ago
- Nikkei Asia
Trump sets deadline of 10 or 12 days for Russia on Ukraine war
TURNBERRY, Scotland (Reuters) -- U.S. President Donald Trump set a new deadline of 10 or 12 days for Russia to make progress toward ending the war in Ukraine or face consequences, underscoring frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the 3-1/2-year-old conflict. Trump has threatened both sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports unless progress is made. Speaking in Scotland, where he is holding meetings with European leaders and playing golf, Trump said he was disappointed in Putin and was shortening a 50-day deadline he had set on the issue earlier this month. "I'm going to make a new deadline of about ... 10 or 12 days from today," Trump told reporters during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. "There's no reason in waiting ... We just don't see any progress being made." There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin. Trump, who has expressed annoyance also with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not always followed up on his tough talk about Putin with action, citing what he deems a good relationship that the two men have had previously. On Monday Trump indicated he was not interested in more talks with Putin. He said sanctions and tariffs would be used as penalties for Moscow if it did not meet Trump's demands. "There's no reason to wait. If you know what the answer is going to be, why wait? And it would be sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs," Trump said. "I don't want to do that to Russia. I love the Russian people." The U.S. president has repeatedly voiced exasperation with Putin for continuing attacks on Ukraine despite U.S. efforts to end the war. Trump has played up successes in other parts of the world where the U.S. has helped to broker peace agreements and has been flattered by some leaders who suggest he should be given the Nobel Peace Prize. "I'm disappointed in President Putin," Trump said on Monday. "I'm going to reduce that 50 days that I gave him to a lesser number because I think I already know the answer what's going to happen." Before returning to the White House in January, Trump had promised to end the conflict within 24 hours. "We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever," Trump said. "And I say that's not the way to do it."
Nikkei Asia
2 hours ago
- Nikkei Asia
Thailand, Cambodia agree to unconditional ceasefire
From left, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet, Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Thailand's acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai shake hands after announcing a ceasefire in the five days of cross-border fighting between Cambodia and Thailand that has killed 34 people. (Photo by Pool/Reuters) NORMAN GOH, ANANTH BALIGA and APORNRATH PHOONPHONGHIPHAT KUALA LUMPUR/PHNOM PENH/BANGKOK -- Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to an unconditional ceasefire in their five-day cross-border conflict over disputed ownership of temples and other territory that has killed at least 34 people and displaced more than 270,000. After more than two hours of talks in Malaysia, hosted by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thailand's acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai announced hostilities would end at midnight on Monday.
Japan Today
4 hours ago
- Japan Today
Pregnant in Kyiv, in the wreckage of apartment hit by Russian drone
Bohdana Zhupanyna, a 30-year-old mother-to-be, stands inside of her apartment damaged by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 23, 2025. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko By Andrii Pryimachenko Bohdana Zhupanyna had planned to use the last two weeks of her pregnancy in Ukraine brushing up on parenting skills and preparing for the arrival of her daughter. Instead, the 30-year-old found herself sifting through the charred remains of her second-floor apartment in Kyiv, wrecked in a Russian drone attack on July 21. "I don't know what kind of fate this is, why this happens, for what reason," she told Reuters, clutching her belly as daylight poured through a gaping hole that was once her living room. Around her, broken pieces of a couch and bed sat clumsily stacked, and once-sleek kitchen shelves were covered in shattered glass and dust. Ukrainians like Zhupanyna have endured months of worsening Russian air strikes that have killed dozens and upended daily lives since peace talks broke down last spring. On Monday, Russian forces unleashed a fresh wave of attacks involving hundreds of drones, wounding eight people in Kyiv as it continued grinding forward on the battlefield. Zhupanyna, who was elsewhere at the time of last week's attack, said she felt lucky that her mother was able to seek cover and emerge unscathed. But a jagged piece of a Russian drone in her smartly designed bathroom serves as a grim reminder of the dangers she and millions of other Ukrainians face on a daily basis. "This is confirmation that they're attacking civilian places, specifically residential apartments," she said. Nearby, a metro station, businesses and other residential properties were also damaged. Moscow, which has killed thousands of civilians since its full-scale invasion in February 2022, denies intentionally targeting them but says it strikes civil infrastructure such as energy systems to degrade Ukraine's ability to fight. Ukraine has also targeted Russian cities with long-range weapons, though it has caused far more limited damage. U.S. President Donald Trump has cited the upsurge in attacks on Ukrainian civilians for a decision this month to resume shipments of weapons to Kyiv, including air defences. The Russians "have to stop killing us," said Zhupanyna, whose father was killed fighting at the front. "As for Trump, I would like him to simply help more." © (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025.
