Expectations low as Russia and Ukraine set for first direct talks in three years

Russia and Ukraine are set to meet for direct talks for the first time in three years in Istanbul on Friday, but hopes of a breakthrough are low after Russia sent a low-level delegation that Kyiv said showed it was “not serious” about peace.

According to Turkish state news agency Anadolu, Ukraine’s delegation will first meet with representatives from Türkiye and the US at Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace, followed by trilateral talks with Russia and Türkiye.

Neither Vladimir Putin nor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be in attendance, however, with Zelensky sending a delegation headed by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov in what the Ukrainian president said was “out of respect” to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Donald Trump and in an “attempt to achieve at least the first steps towards ending the war” despite the “low level” of the members of the Russian delegation.

Zelensky had previously challenged Putin to attend the talks that the Russian leader himself proposed in a surprise overnight address on Sunday, and spent Thursday “waiting” for Putin in the Turkish capital Ankara after meeting with Erdoğan.

However, in Putin’s absence, Zelensky said there was “nothing” for either himself, the head of the Ukrainian Security Service or the chief of the Ukrainian General Staff to do in Istanbul.

Russia’s delegation is headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who previously led Moscow’s negotiating team in abortive talks shortly after it launched its invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022.

Medinsky said on Thursday that Moscow saw this week’s negotiations with Ukraine as a continuation of the failed 2022 talks, and that Moscow was in a “working mood” and “ready for potential compromises”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Ukrainian officials on Friday, said that Washington did not have “high expectations” of a breakthrough in the talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

“The level of team that was sent by the Russian side is certainly not indicative of one that’s going to lead to a major breakthrough”, Rubio told reporters after a NATO meeting in Antalya on Thursday, adding that the “only way” to break the deadlock in talks was for Putin and Trump to meet directly.