Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t show up Thursday for proposed direct peace talks in Turkey with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was waiting for Putin in the capital Ankara after challenging him to face-to-face discussions on ending their countries’ more than three-year war.
With Putin absent, the Russian delegation was in Istanbul and it wasn’t clear whether the sides would meet for their first talks since March 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor the previous month.
Zelenskyy said the Russian delegation appeared to be merely “decorative.” Speaking at the airport in the Turkish capital, Ankara, he said the next steps for talks would be decided after his upcoming meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Putin’s absence punctured hopes of a breakthrough in peace efforts given a push in recent months by the Trump administration and Western European leaders. It also raised the prospect of intensified international sanctions on Russia that have been threatened by the U.S. and European leaders.
“Now, after three years of immense suffering, there is finally a window of opportunity,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a NATO meeting taking place separately in Turkey. “The talks … hopefully may open a new chapter.”
The war of attrition has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the U.N., and continues along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line. Russian forces are also preparing to launch a fresh military offensive, Ukrainian government and Western military analysts say.
The Kremlin never gave a response to Sunday’s challenge from Zelenskyy. That challenge came after Putin had proposed direct talks with Ukraine.
Zelenskyy will sit at the table only with Putin, Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not surprised that Putin was a no-show. Trump had pressed for Putin and Zelenskyy to meet but brushed off Putin’s apparent decision not to attend.
“I didn’t think it was possible for Putin to go if I’m not there,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters as he took part in a business roundtable with executives in Doha, Qatar on the third day of his visit to the Middle East.
Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, is leading the Russian team that will also include three other senior officials, the Kremlin said. Putin also appointed four lower-level officials as “experts” for the talks in Istanbul.
The top-level Ukrainian delegation also included Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, and the head of the Ukrainian presidential office Andriy Yermak, a Ukrainian official said.
Details about whether, when and where the Ukrainian delegation might meet their Russian counterparts were unclear. Russia said the talks have been postponed until the afternoon “at the initiative of the Turkish side”
Tass said that the talks were to take place in a presidential office on the Bosporus, in Istanbul.
Moscow offered talks instead of a ceasefire
Putin on Wednesday evening held a meeting with senior government officials and members of the delegation in preparation for the talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov, and National Security Council secretary Sergei Shoigu attended the meeting, among others.
Kyiv and its European allies had urged the Kremlin to agree to a full, unconditional 30-day ceasefire as a first step toward peace. Putin offered direct talks between Russia and Ukraine instead.
The Kremlin billed Thursday’s talks as a “restart” of peace negotiations that were held in Istanbul in 2022 but quickly fell apart. Moscow accused Ukraine and the West of wanting to continue fighting, while Kyiv said Russia’s demands amounted to an ultimatum rather than something both sides could agree on.
Russia’s delegation then was also headed by Medinsky.
Putin’s proposal came after more than three months of diplomacy kickstarted by Trump, who promised during his campaign to end the devastating war swiftly. The Trump administration in recent weeks indicated that it might walk away from the peace effort if there was no tangible progress soon.
Ukraine supports Trump’s peace efforts
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha met with U.S. State Secretary Marco Rubio and Senator Lindsey Graham in the Turkish city of Antalya late Wednesday night. Antalya on Thursday is hosting NATO foreign ministers to discuss new defense investment goals as the U.S. shifts its focus to security challenges away from Europe.
Sybiha reaffirmed Ukraine’s support for Trump’s mediation efforts and thanked the U.S. for its continued involvement, urging Moscow to “reciprocate Ukraine’s constructive steps” toward peace. “So far, it has not,” Sybiha said.
On Thursday morning, Sybiha also met with other European foreign ministers, including his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot, who in a post on X reiterated the call for a ceasefire and the threat of “massive sanctions” if Russia doesn’t comply.
“We’re in a very difficult spot right now, and we hope that we can find the steps forward that provide for the end of this war in a negotiated way and the prevention of any war in the future,” Rubio said Thursday.
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, also in Antalya for the NATO talks, accused Moscow of not being willing to to engage in a serious peace process.
“We have one chair empty, which is the chair of Vladimir Putin. So now I guess the entire world has realized that there’s only one party not willing to engage in serious peace negotiations, and that certainly is Russia,” Valtonen said.
Barrot echoed her sentiment: “In front of Ukrainians there is an empty chair, one that should have been occupied by Vladimir Putin,” he said. “Vladimir Putin is dragging his feet and in all evidence does not want to enter into these peace discussions.”
—Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels; Illia Novikov and Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Ukraine; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Matthew Lee in Antalya, Turkey contributed to this report.
