Russian President Vladimir Putin announced late on Wednesday, the 14th of May, the formation of a delegation of experienced negotiators to hold direct talks with Ukraine in Turkey to resolve the ongoing war, but the Kremlin leader himself will not take part in the talks, according to Reuters and the BBC.
Putin on Sunday proposed holding direct talks with Ukraine on Thursday in Turkey “without any preconditions”.
Zelenskyy will be in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would attend the talks if Putin was also present.
“The answers to all the questions about this war – why it started, why it continues – all these answers are in Moscow,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday evening. “How the war ends is up to the world.”
According to media reports, US President Donald Trump will also not attend, although he had previously hinted that he would attend if Putin was present.
THE ABSENCE OF THE RUSSIAN AND US PRESIDENTS ON THURSDAY UNDERMINES HOPES OF A MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN THE WAR LAUNCHED BY RUSSIA IN FEBRUARY 2022.
Putin’s order, published on the Kremlin’s website, says the delegation includes two officials who took part in the last talks between the two sides in the first weeks after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
They included presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky and deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin.
The delegation also included Igor Kostyukov, Director of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU). In a Kremlin statement, Kostyukov was named Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin was also part of the delegation.
In 2022, the negotiators held several rounds of talks, first in Belarus and then in Turkey, but eventually broke off.
The top US diplomat, Marco Rubio, arrived in Turkey on Wednesday, where he will meet NATO foreign ministers on Thursday.
Ahead of that meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha announced that he had met Rubio on Wednesday evening and said that he reaffirmed Ukraine’s support for US peace efforts and called on Russia to “respond to Ukraine’s constructive steps with a reciprocal response”.
Rubio plans to travel on to Istanbul on Friday, where, according to the State Department, he will hold talks with European counterparts to discuss the war in Ukraine.
Since returning to the White House, President Trump has sought a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
He ended years of Western boycotts of the Russian leader by speaking to Putin by telephone in February, and his envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin for talks in Moscow.
Trump wants the two sides to sign a 30-day ceasefire to stop the war and a Russian lawmaker said on Wednesday there could also be talks on a huge prisoner-of-war swap.
Zelenskyy is in favour of an immediate 30-day ceasefire, but Putin has said he first wants to start talks that could discuss the details of such a truce.