Russia’s Vladimir Putin spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Turkey on Thursday, dealing a blow to prospects for a peace breakthrough.
The Russian president dispatched a second-tier team of aides and deputy ministers to take part in talks in Istanbul, while U.S. 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.
Zelenskiy said Putin’s decision not to attend but to send what he called a “decorative” line-up showed the Russian leader was not serious about ending the war.
He 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.
“We can’t be running around the world looking for Putin,” Zelenskiy said 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,” Zelenskiy told reporters.
Zelenskiy 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.
Both 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 “tapping me along”.
“Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
(Reuters)
