Russia and Ukraine to meet in Istanbul, but expectations low

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to media after disembarking from the plane upon his arrival at Ankara airport, in Ankara, on May 15, 2025. [AFP] Delegations from Moscow and Kyiv are in Istanbul Friday, where they plan to hold their first direct peace talks since 2022, but the absence of presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky leaves little hope for progress in ending the war. Turkey said a tripartite meeting between Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish officials will take place at 12:30 pm local time (0930 GMT) at the Turkish presidency's Dolmabahce Palace. Turkish, US and Ukrainian officials are due to hold a meeting ahead of the talks, Ankara said. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who landed in Istanbul Friday morning, had earlier downplayed expectations for the peace talks, after Moscow sent a low-profile delegation and both sides traded insults ahead of the negotiations, initially slated for Thursday. "I want to be frank... we don't have high expectations of what will happen tomorrow," Rubio said. US President Donald Trump had also appeared to concede that progress in Turkey was unlikely, saying there would be no movement towards ending the three-year war until he met Putin. "I don't believe anything's going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together," Trump told reporters on Air Force One. Zelensky also said he did not expect a breakthrough, accusing Moscow of being "not serious" about ending the war. Putin last week proposed direct negotiations between the two sides, but declined to respond when Zelensky challenged him to attend the talks in person. The Russian side is being led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hawkish adviser to Putin who has questioned Ukraine's right to exist and led failed talks in 2022 at the start of the war. Ukraine's delegation will be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who is from the Crimea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014, along with about a dozen deputy-level officials. Setting the tone Russia continued its attacks in the hours ahead of the talks, with Kyiv saying Moscow's shelling Friday morning killed a woman in the frontline town of Kupiansk. Kyiv also said another woman in her 50s was killed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while Moscow said it downed 65 Ukrainian drones overnight. Trump, who is keen to push Russia and Ukraine towards a peace settlement, said it was "obvious" Putin would never attend the talks. "Obviously, he wasn't going to go," he told reporters. "He was going to go, but he thought I was going to go. He wasn't going if I wasn't there." Setting the tone ahead of the meeting, Zelensky on Thursday said Russia had sent a "dummy" delegation, while Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the Ukrainian president a "clown" and "loser". Outside the Russian consulate in Istanbul, Medinsky told reporters that Russia saw the talks as a continuation of failed 2022 negotiations and that he was ready for "possible compromises". "The delegation is committed to a constructive approach, to finding possible solutions and points of contact. The goal of direct negotiations with the Ukrainian side is to eventually establish long-term peace by eliminating the root causes of the conflict," he said. Zelensky said a ceasefire was his team's top priority for the talks. After a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Zelensky said that Russia was "not taking the real negotiations very seriously" but that he was sending a high-level delegation "out of respect" for Erdogan and Trump. 'Avoiding peace' Rubio said he would meet in Istanbul with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga and that a lower-level US official would meet the Russians. Ahead of the planned talks, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Putin "must pay the price for avoiding peace" as he prepared to attend a European Political Community (EPC) meeting in Albania on Friday. The EPC, which brings together the members of the European Union and 20 other countries, was established in 2022 on the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Starmer and Macron will be joined by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO chief Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. Kyiv and its European allies had called for Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire before any negotiations, but Moscow rejected the proposal. Russia wants Ukraine to make massive territorial concessions, giving up even more land than it has lost on the battlefield, and has also at times sought the removal of Zelensky, pledges of military neutrality and limits on Ukraine's army. Kyiv and the West reject those calls but Zelensky has conceded that Ukraine might only get back some territory through diplomatic means.

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Russia and Ukraine to meet in Istanbul, but expectations low

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