London-The Ukrainian and Russian representatives will meet in Istanbul, Türkiye, on Thursday, for their first meeting from the first weeks of 3 years of Moscow of their neighbor.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will not attend Thursday’s conversations, despite an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a face -to -face meeting between the two leaders.
The return to Istanbul is symbolic, the historic Turkish city has been the host of the most successful diplomacy explosions in three years of devastating war.
It was there in March 2022 that Ukrainian and Russian negotiators produced the Istanbul statement, the framework of a possible peace agreement to end the narcotic large -scale invasion of Russia.
His compensation was essentially one of Ukraine that accepted permanent neutrality, which means that he always abandons any hope of becoming a NATO member, in exchange for Ironclad security guarantees.
The subsequent intensification of war and the emerging evidence of alleged Russian war crimes, as well as the suspicions of sabotage operations against the participants of the peace conversations, fatally undercuted those first peace efforts.
This combination of images created on May 12, 2025 shows Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 12, 2024 and an image of the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore on June 2, 2024.
GAVRIL GRIGOROVNHAC NGUYEN/POOL/AFP/AFP through Getty Images
Later, Istanbul was also the center of the Black Sea Grain initiative that extended from 2022 to 2023, which with the support of Turkey and the United Nations temporarily allowed the safe export of grain and other agricultural products from the Ukrainian and Russian ports through the Black Sea, which had then become a key theater of the fight, until the rest of the world.
The Kremlin assistant, Vladimir Medinsky, who directed conversations in 2022, will lead the Russian delegation.
Medinsky will join the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mikhail Galuzin, Vice Minister of Defense Alexander F and Igor Kostyukov, the head of the Russian military intelligence agency.
Zelenskyy and Putin met for the last time in person in France in 2019 for a Normandía format session, a peace forum convened with France and Germany in an attempt to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The fight there was deactivated by the annexation of Russia of Crimea and the subsequent encouragement of a separatist revolt against kyiv in the Donbas region. The large -scale invasion of 2022 of Moscow was a continuation of that initial cross -border aggression, with Russian columns emerging from Crimea Occupied, Donetsk and Luhansk to take more territory.
Zelenskyy said at a press conference this week that he would not meet any other Russian representative, because “everything in Russia depends” on the president. “I’ll go to Türkiye and I’m ready to meet Putin,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy is expected to be in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A local resident looks at the destroyed Russian military vehicles that are exhibited in Saint Michael Square in kyiv, Ukraine on May 14, 2025.
Roman Pilipey/AFP through Getty Images
President Donald Trump, who since he returned to office has been looking for fire and the eventual peace agreement, suggested this week that he was waiting for progress in Thursday’s conversations.
“I think we are having some good news from there and maybe tomorrow and maybe Friday,” Trump said when he arrived in Qatar on Wednesday.
The president even hinted that he could even travel to Istanbul, although he did not say if he expected Putin doing the same.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s appearing,” Trump said about his Russian counterpart. “He would like him to be there, and that is a possibility. If we could finish the war, he would be thinking about that,” Trump added.
The United States delegation to Türkiye includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Senior Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg. Speaking at a meeting of foreign ministers of NATO in Istanbul on Thursday, Rubio said about his hopes for the next conversations of Ukraine-Russia: “We will see what happens in the next few days.”
“I will say this, and I will repeat it, that there is no military solution for the Russian-Ukraine conflict, Rubio continued.” This war will end not through a military solution, but through a diplomat, and the sooner an agreement can be reached to end this war, less people, less people will die and less destruction there will be. “
Trump, said Rubio, “is interested in building things, not destroying. He wants economies and countries focusing on things, doing things, providing opportunities and prosperity for his people, and is against all the things that prevent it from happening, such as wars, such as terrorism and all the instability that comes with that.”
Putin proposed the conversations last weekend, in response to the demand for Ukraine, backed by the leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland during a joint visit to kyiv, during a high the full fire of 30 days, during which peace conversations could continue. Trump agreed the plan by phone, European leaders said.
In this photo taken from the video distributed by the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Russia on May 13, 2025, a self -propelled Russian multiple rocket launcher shoots towards the Ukrainian positions in Ukraine.
AP
But Trump also supported Putin’s offer to restart the conversations that collapsed in 2022. Trump even publicly pressed Zelenskyy to “immediately” agree the meeting.
Despite the importance of renewed direct conversations of Ukraine-Russia, Oleg Ignatov, Russia’s senior analyst of the international crisis group, told ABC News that he had low expectations of immediate progress.
“The Russians clearly say they are interested in maintaining military and diplomatic pressure on Ukraine,” he said. “They clearly say that there will be long negotiations and that Ukraine should be prepared for this.”
While Trump agitates by an agreement that can sell as a political victory, kyiv and Moscow are maneuvering to avoid the fault of the failure of peace conversations, and dodge Trump’s later anger.
The Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Andrii Sybiha, met with Rubio on Wednesday in Istanbul. “I reaffirmed the strong and consistent commitment of Ukraine with the peace efforts of President Trump and thanked the United States for their participation,” the first wrote OM X.
“We are ready to advance our cooperation in a constructive and mutually beneficial way,” he added. “It is essential that Russia corresponds to the constructive steps of Ukraine. Until now, it has not done so. Moscow must understand that rejecting peace has a cost.”
