Lower-level Russian and Ukrainian teams were set to meet in Istanbul as both leaders opted out, while Trump said only a meeting with Putin can end the deadlock.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not take part in the Russia–Ukraine peace talks in Turkey this week, the Kremlin has confirmed, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to also back out of his planned in-person attendance, with lower-tier negotiating teams set to face off in Istanbul later Thursday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on May 15 that while Putin would not be present, Russia had dispatched a delegation that is already on the ground in Istanbul, ready to talk.
“What kind of participation will be required further, at what level, it is too early to say now,” Peskov said when asked whether Putin would join the talks at some point.
Zelenskyy, who said he would attend and had also called on Putin to attend, expressed regret that no one “who actually makes decisions” from the Russian side would be at the table. In remarks to reporters in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Thursday, Zelenskyy confirmed that he wouldn’t join the talks either, and that the Ukrainian team will instead be headed by the country’s defense minister, with a mandate to discuss a cease-fire.
“We can’t be running around the world looking for Putin,” Zelenskyy told reporters after meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara. “I feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation—this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump.”
President Donald Trump, who has been trying to broker an end to the war and had pressed for Putin and Zelenskyy to meet to hammer out a deal, appeared to brush off Putin’s decision not to take part.
“I didn’t think it was possible for Putin to go if I’m not there,” Trump told reporters on Thursday at a meeting with business executives in Doha, Qatar, on the third day of his visit to the Middle East.
According to Trump, only a face-to-face meeting with Putin could undo the deadlock in the stalled talks.
“I don’t believe anything’s going to happen whether you like it or not, until [Putin] and I get together,” he said on Air Force One while traveling from Doha to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. “But we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.”
By Tom Ozimek
