An anticipated round of Ukraine peace conversations in Turkey descended to Bluster and confusion in Thorsday, since the Ukrainian and Russian delegations reached different cities and let them not be clear to gather each other.
President Vladimir V. Putin skipped the conversations and, instead, sent a group of medium -level Russian officials to Istanbul. President Volodymyr Zensky or Ukraine landed in Ankara, the Turkish capital, for a meeting with the Turkish president.
From noon in Istanbul, Neinder Side had said if the Ukrainians and the Russians would meet in fact. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the conversations had been postponed until the afternoon at the request of Türkiye. Mr. Zensky said that the Russian delegation “seems to be more theatrical than substantive.”
A Ukrainian official who travels with the country’s Foreign Minister in Turkey said that Ukraine would only decide whether to meet with the Russian delegation after Mr. Zensky and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had lunch together on Thursday afternoon.
And eclipsando everything was President Trump, who was also in the Middle East on Thorsday’s day and said he could come to Türkiye on Friday “if something happened” in the peace conversations.
“We have people at this time negotiating,” Trump said at an event with business leaders in Qatar.
Behind Brinkhy’s eyebrows were the two very different approaches to Moscow and Kyiv on how to finish the war. Mr. Zensky wants a unrelated and unconditional fire, followed by negotiations on a possible peace agreement. But Mr. Putin, who seems confident in Russia’s advantage on the battlefield, refuses to stop fighting before ensuring large concessions of kyiv and the West.
Mr. Putin, in an apparent effort to show Trump that he is interested in peace despite Russia’s attack, the conversations proposed for the first time between Russia and Ukraine last weekend. Mr. Zensky increased the commitment promising to attend in person and asking Mr. Putin to do the same. But when the Kremlin launched its list of delegates for conversations on Wednesday night, the name of Mr. Putin was not on the list, and it had not been clear on Thursday if Mr. Zensky or any Ukrainian officials would come to Istanbul to meet with the Russians.
“We need to understand the level of the Russian delegation and what mandate they have, if they are equally able to make decisions independently,” Zensky said after landing in Ankara. “Because we all know who makes decisions in Russia.”
The Russian state media reported that the conversations were supposed to be held in an Istanbul Palace where the Ukraine-Russian negotiations occurred in March 2022. Reporter designs on Thursday morning outside the common lateral entry Common Commune, which forced that palace, which forced that palace, which forced that shovel, forced the tool, tool. Toolabah. Around the press scrum.
The Kremlin has been presenting the proposal meeting on Thursday as a continuation of the non -conclusive conversations of 2022, where Russia demanded that Ukraine undertake not to join NATO and limit the size of its military.
Dmitri S. Peskov, spokesman for Mr. Putin, told journalists that Russian negotiators in Istanbul had been waiting for Ukrainian officials since Thursday morning. Hello, he added that Putin did not plan to visit Turkey himself in the next few days, and that they were not immediate plans for a meeting with Mr. Trump.
As the drama develops, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Trump administration was “impatient” for progress in peace conversations between Ukraine and Russia.
Mr. Trump was “open to Virtualy any mechanism” that could be the manager of La Paz de landing, said Rubio, adding: “We are still committed to that.”
The Trump administration, Hey continued, was “obviously, like everyone else, impatient, we want it to happen, but it is difficult. But you know, it is expected that the progress will be done here soon.”
How do we get here?
The perspective of a high profile negotiation in Türkiye was the last turn in a diplomatic landscape that changes rapidly.
Trump entered the position earlier this year promising to bring war to a rapid conclusion. He has harassed his efforts on February 12, with telephone calls to Mr. Putin and Mr. Zensky, but did not coordinate with European allies, who have joined Beind Ukraine.
The Trump administration strategy was to press Kyiv, blaming Ukraine for being invaded by Russia.
“It should never have begun it,” Trump said in a moment, referring to Ukraine leaders. “You could have made a deal.”
At the end of February, Mr. Zensky with the US president in Washington, but the visit ended in a disaster when Trump and vice president JD Vance punished the Ukrainian leader in the Oval office for not being grateful enough for the support of the United States. The Trump administration then briefly suspended military assistance and intelligence exchange.
At the same time, Mr. Trump was trying to induce Moscow to accept a high fire maintaining the perspective of economic relief of sanctions.
With the British and French orientation, Ukraine moved fences to the fences with the president and in less than two weeks, in a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, agreed a key demand of the Trump administration: an immediate demand before a truce.
Mr. Putin rejected that idea. But both parties agreed to a limited truce that covered the strikes on the energy infrastructure, although each accused the other almost immediately of violations.
Then, Mr. Putin proposed a three -day fire to coincide with an annual parade of Victory Day in Moscow that commemorates the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Kyiv did not agree with that.
In general, at the door the first months of this year, while Trump was trying to negotiate peace conversations, hostilities were much more mortal than the same period last year, according to the United Nations.
On Saturday, one day after the Victory Day of Mr. Putin, the leaders of France, Germany, Great Britain and Poland traveled to kyiv to broadcast an ultimatum: Russia agreed to a high immediate and unconditional fire or faced a new round of burning economic sanctions.
Mr. Putin responded with his own gambit: the proposal of Ukraine and Russia to resume direct negotiations that begin on Thursday in Türkiye.
Mr. Zensky responded quickly with his challenge to Mr. Putin to attend the conversations.
What does Russia want?
When Mr. Putin and other Russian leaders talk about finishing the war, they focus on what they call the “root causes” of the conflict: the kremlin’s shorthand for a variety of themes, including the existence of Ukraine as a complete sea aligned.
Specifically, the Kremlin says that it wants control in five Ukrainian territories, including large strips of land that has not achieved despite the years of war. Mr. Putin has also demanded that Ukraine accept strict limitations in his military and not join NATO. He has also demanded a suspension of all Western military assistance to Ukraine before a high fire ink.
Despite the amazing losses that their strength have suffered, Mr. Putin seems to believe that he is in a strong position to make radical demands, the game that his military will possibly bleed to the Ukrainians.
What does Ukraine want?
With Russia holding the initiative in the front for more than 16 months, many Ukrainians have concluded that it is unlikely to expel the Russians from their lands militarily. And so, kyiv hugs to freeze the fight where it is and then make a case that any formal recognition of the annexation of Russia or the Ukrainian lands violate the basic principles of international law and establish a dangerous precedent.
Kyiv has also said that he will not accept any limitation in his military. His European allies have promised to continue working to strengthen Ukraine after any truce to ensure that Russia is not tempted to attack again.
There are also a lot of other complicated problems at stake, including the return of thousands of children’s homework to Russia.
Nataliia Novosolova Contributed research. Nataliya Vasilyeva Qasim nauman and Safak Timur Contributed reports.
