Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul on Friday for their first direct peace talks in more than three years, under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.
Live Turkish television pictures showed Russian and Ukrainian negotiators holding discussions together with a Turkish delegation. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was making a speech at the start of the meeting.
The meeting at the Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus marks a rare sign of diplomatic progress between the warring sides, who had not met face to face since March 2022, the month after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Defence Minister Rustem Umerov was heading Ukraine’s delegation, while it was expected Russia’s side would be represented by a team led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.
Half of the Ukrainian delegation wore camouflage military fatigues, sitting at a table directly facing their Russian counterparts, who were in suits.
Fidan said it was critical to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible. He said he was happy to see the will of both sides to open a new window of opportunity for peace, and it was important that the Istanbul talks form the basis for a meeting between leaders of the two countries.
“There are two paths ahead of us: one road will take us on a process that will lead to peace, while the other will lead to more destruction and death. The sides will decide on their own, with their own will, which path they choose,” Fidan said.
Muted expectations
Expectations for a major breakthrough, already low, were dented further on Thursday when Trump said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Trump, winding up a Middle East tour and heading back to Washington, said on Friday he would meet the Russian leader “as soon as we can set it up.”
The Kremlin confirmed early Thursday that Russia President Vladimir Putin would not be attending peace talks in Istanbul, sending aides and deputy ministers instead. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bowed out soon after, dismissing the Russian delegation as ‘decorative.’ William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, says it’s especially odd since Putin suggested the meeting in the first place.
The Kremlin said that a meeting between Putin and Trump was essential but required considerable advance preparation and had to yield results when it happened.
“Such a meeting is certainly necessary. It is necessary both primarily from the point of view of bilateral Russian-U.S. relations and from the point of view of having a serious conversation at the highest level about international affairs and on regional problems, including, of course, about the crisis over Ukraine,” said Peskov.
Commenting on the Istanbul talks, Peskov said that the Russian negotiating team was in constant communication with Moscow and that President Putin was receiving real-time updates.
Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine in Turkey, but spurned a challenge from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet him in person.
Zelenskyy said on Friday that Kyiv’s top priority was “a full, unconditional and honest ceasefire … to stop the killing and create a solid basis for diplomacy.” He said that if Russia refused, it should be hit with strong new sanctions against its energy sector and banks.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also flew to Istanbul on Friday, told reporters the night before that, based on the level of the negotiating teams, a major breakthrough was unlikely.
“I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m 100 per cent wrong. I hope tomorrow the news says they’ve agreed to a ceasefire; they’ve agreed to enter serious negotiations. But I’m just giving you my assessment, honestly,” he said.
Russia controls about 20% of territory
Russia says it sees the talks as a continuation of the negotiations that took place in the early weeks of the war in 2022, also in Istanbul.
But the terms under discussion then, when Ukraine was still reeling from Russia’s initial invasion, would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They included a demand by Moscow for large cuts to the size of Ukraine’s military.
With Russian forces now in control of close to one-fifth of Ukraine, Putin has held fast to his longstanding demands for Kyiv to cede territory, abandon its NATO membership ambitions and become a neutral country.
Ukraine rejects these terms as tantamount to capitulation, and is seeking guarantees of its future security from world powers, especially the United States.
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1:15 – Credit: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Thursday the government’s position on a possible peace deal with Ukraine has changed to reflect changes on the front lines where Russia has been advancing. Â
Asked by Reuters if Russia’s position had changed since June 2024 when President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia, Zakharova said, “Yes, there are these changes in the Russian position.”
“These changes are reflected by changes on the ground,” she said.
‘War of attrition’
Ukraine repelled Russia’s initial assault on the capital, Kyiv, in 2022 and recaptured swathes of land seized by Russians in the war’s first year. But Russian forces have slowly advanced for most of the past two years.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been wounded or killed on both sides. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed, whole cities have been destroyed and millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes.
Moscow says it was forced to mount its “special military operation” in response to NATO expansion and the prospect that the Western alliance would admit Ukraine as a member and use it as a launchpad to attack Russia. Any settlement of the conflict must address these “root causes,” the Kremlin says.
Kyiv and its allies reject that as a false pretext for what they call an imperial-style land grab.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s army chief, said late on Thursday that Russia has about 640,000 troops in Ukraine at the moment and had “turned its aggression against Ukraine into a war of attrition.”Â
