Peace breakthrough unlikely
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t be running around the world looking for Putin,\u201d says Zelenskiy
\n ISTANBUL
\nRussia\u2019s Vladimir Putin spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Turkiye on Thursday, dealing a blow to prospects for a peace breakthrough.
\nThe Russian president dispatched a second-tier team of aides and deputy ministers to take part in talks in Istanbul, while US President Donald Trump, on a tour of the Gulf, undercut the chances of major progress when he said there would be no movement in the absence of a meeting between himself and Putin.
\nZelenskiy said Putin\u2019s decision not to attend but to send what he called a \u201cdecorative\u201d line-up showed the Russian leader was not serious about ending the war.
\nHe said he himself would not go to Istanbul, but would send a team, headed by his defence minister, with a mandate to discuss a ceasefire. It was not clear when the talks would actually begin.
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t be running around the world looking for Putin,\u201d Zelenskiy said after meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
\n\u201cI feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation\u2013this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump,\u201d Zelenskiy told reporters.
\nZelenskiy backs an immediate, unconditional 30-day ceasefire but Putin has said he first wants to start talks at which the details of such a truce could be discussed. More than three years after its full-scale invasion, Russia has the advantage on the battlefield and says Ukraine could use a pause in the war to call up extra troops and acquire more Western weapons.
\nBoth Trump and Putin have said for months they are keen to meet each other, but no date has been set. Trump, after piling heavy pressure on Ukraine and clashing with Zelenskiy in the Oval Office in February, has lately expressed growing impatience that Putin may be \u201ctapping me along\u201d.
\n\u201cNothing\u2019s going to happen until Putin and I get together,\u201d Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
\nDiplomatic confusion
\nThe diplomatic disarray was symptomatic of the deep hostility between the warring sides and the unpredictability injected by Trump, whose interventions since returning to the White House in January have often provoked dismay from Ukraine and its European allies.
\nWhile Zelenskiy waited in vain for Putin in Ankara, the Russian negotiating team sat in Istanbul with no one to talk to on the Ukrainian side. Some 200 reporters milled around near the Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus that the Russians had specified as the talks venue.
\nThe enemies have been wrestling for months over the logistics of ceasefires and peace talks while trying to show Trump they are serious about trying to end what he calls \u201cthis stupid war\u201d.
\nHundreds of thousands have been killed and wounded on both sides in the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two. Washington has threatened repeatedly to abandon its mediation efforts unless there is clear progress.
\nTrump said on Thursday he would go to the talks in Turkey on Friday if it was \u201cappropriate\u201d.
\n\u201cI just hope Russia and Ukraine are able to do something. It has to stop,\u201d he said.
\nRussia accused Ukraine of \u201ctrying to put on a show\u201d around the talks. Its lead negotiator said the Russians were ready to get down to work and discuss possible compromises.
\nAsked if Putin would join talks at some future point, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: \u201cWhat kind of participation will be required further, at what level, it is too early to say now.\u201d
\nRussia said on Thursday its forces had captured two more settlements in Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk region. A spokeswoman for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointedly reminded reporters of his comment last year that Ukraine was \u201cgetting smaller\u201d in the absence of an agreement to stop fighting.
\nFirst talks for three years
\nOnce they start, the talks will have to address a chasm between the two sides over a host of issues.
\nThe Russian delegation is headed by presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, a former culture minister who has overseen the rewriting of history textbooks to reflect Moscow\u2019s narrative on the war. It includes a deputy defence minister, a deputy foreign minister and the head of military intelligence.
\nKey members of the team, including Medinsky, were also involved in the last direct peace talks in Istanbul in March 2022\u2013a signal that Moscow wants to pick up where those left off.
\nBut the terms under discussion then, while Ukraine was still reeling from Russia\u2019s initial invasion, would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They included a demand by Moscow for deep cuts to the size of Ukraine\u2019s military.
\nWith Russian forces now in control of close to a 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.
\nUkraine rejects these terms as tantamount to capitulation, and is seeking guarantees of its future security from world powers, especially the United States.
\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Zelenskiy had shown his good faith by coming to Turkey but there was an \u201cempty chair\u201d where Putin should be sitting.
\n\u201cPutin is stalling and clearly has no desire to enter these peace negotiations, even when President Trump expressed his availability and his desire to facilitate these negotiations,\u201d he said.
\nHighlighting the level of tension between Russia and the US-led alliance, Estonia said Moscow had briefly sent a military jet into NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea during an attempt by the Estonian navy to stop a Russian-bound oil tanker thought to be part of a \u201cshadow fleet\u201d defying Western sanctions on Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peace breakthrough unlikely \u201cWe can\u2019t be running around the world looking for Putin,\u201d says Zelenskiy ISTANBUL Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Turkiye on Thursday, dealing a blow to prospects for a peace breakthrough. The Russian president dispatched a second-tier team of aides and deputy ministers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-478817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n