Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul on Friday at their first direct peace talks in more than three years, under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.
Live Turkish television pictures showed Russian and Ukrainian negotiators holding discussions together with a Turkish delegation. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was making a speech at the start of the meeting.
The meeting at the Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus marks a rare sign of diplomatic progress between the warring sides, who had not met face to face since March 2022, the month after Russia’s invasion.
Defence Minister Rustem Umerov was heading Ukraine’s delegation, while it was expected Russia’s side would be represented by a team led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.
Expectations for a major breakthrough, already low, were dented further on Thursday when Trump said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin confirmed early Thursday that Russia President Vladimir Putin would not be attending peace talks in Istanbul, sending aides and deputy ministers instead. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bowed out soon after, dismissing the Russian delegation as ‘decorative.’ William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, says it’s especially odd since Putin suggested the meeting in the first place.
Trump, winding up a Middle East tour and heading back to Washington, said on Friday he would meet the Russian leader “as soon as we can set it up.”
The Kremlin said that a meeting between Putin and Trump was essential but required considerable advance preparation and had to yield results when it happened.
“Such a meeting is certainly necessary. It is necessary both primarily from the point of view of bilateral Russian-U.S. relations and from the point of view of having a serious conversation at the highest level about international affairs and on regional problems, including, of course, about the crisis over Ukraine,” said Peskov.
Commenting on the Istanbul talks, Peskov said that the Russian negotiating team was in constant communication with Moscow and that President Putin was receiving real-time updates.
Muted expectations
Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine in Turkey, but has spurned a challenge from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet him in person, and instead has sent a team of mid-ranking officials to the talks.
Zelenskyy said Putin’s decision not to attend but to send what he called a “decorative” lineup showed the Russian leader was not serious about ending the war. Russia accused Ukraine of trying “to put on a show” around the talks.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also flew to Istanbul on Friday, told reporters the night before that, based on the level of the negotiating teams, a major breakthrough was unlikely.
“I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m 100 per cent wrong. I hope tomorrow the news says they’ve agreed to a ceasefire; they’ve agreed to enter serious negotiations. But I’m just giving you my assessment, honestly,” he said.
Russia says it sees the talks as a continuation of the negotiations that took place in the early weeks of the war in 2022, also in Istanbul.
But the terms under discussion then, when Ukraine was still reeling from Russia’s initial invasion, would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They included a demand by Moscow for large cuts to the size of Ukraine’s military.
With Russian forces now in control of close to one-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.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Thursday the government’s position on a possible peace deal with Ukraine has changed to reflect changes on the front lines where Russia has been advancing.
Asked by Reuters if Russia’s position had changed since June 2024 when President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia, Zakharova said, “Yes, there are these changes in the Russian position.”
“These changes are reflected by changes on the ground,” she said.
