Russia and Ukraine hold first direct talks in three years in Turkey
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul on Friday for their first direct peace talks in more than three years of war, holding discussions together with a Turkish delegation.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was making a speech as per Reuters at the start of the meeting, seen as a sign of diplomatic progress between the sides that have not met face-to-face since March 2022, when a peace process was aborted just a few weeks after Russia staged its February 2022 full-scale invasion of the country.
Fidan said he was happy to see that the will of the two sides had opened up a new window of opportunity for peace, adding it was critical for a ceasefire to be agreed as soon as possible, and for the foundations to be made for a meeting of the two nation's leaders.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his 'number one priority is a full, unconditional and honest ceasefire' during talks with Russia to potentially pave the way for a future peace deal.
'This must happen immediately to stop the killing and create a solid basis for diplomacy,' he said during talks between the two countries.
'And if the Russian representatives in Istanbul today cannot even agree to that, to a ceasefire … then it will be 100% clear that Putin continues to undermine diplomacy,' he added, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Moscow has notably withheld its top diplomatic heavyweights – including Putin's chief foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, and his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov – instead dispatching a peculiar mix of officials, led by Vladimir Medinsky, who as per a report by The Guardian is an 'ultra-conservative former culture minister and Putin aide known for peddling nationalist propaganda' and once claiming Russians 'have an extra chromosome,' Joining him are Igor Kostyukov, the GRU intelligence chief linked to covert sabotage and election interference; Col Gen Alexander Fomin, a veteran military diplomat involved in arms deals with Russia's non-Western allies; and Mikhail Galuzin, a literary-minded diplomat overseeing relations with post-Soviet states.
On Ukraine's side, the delegation includes Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, 'a reformist Crimean Tatar with close ties to Turkey', as per The Guardian; presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak, dubbed Ukraine's 'de facto vice-president' for his central wartime role; spymaster Vasyl Malyuk, who reshaped Ukraine's intelligence operations; Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha, a long-time Zelenskyy loyalist and diplomat; and newly appointed army chief Andriy Hnatov, a frontline marine officer who as per the Guardian famously refused to surrender during the 2014 Crimea crisis.
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