Russia's Vladimir Putin has spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey, 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 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.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later echoed that view, telling reporters in the Turkish resort of Antalya that Washington "didn't have high expectations" for the Ukraine talks in Istanbul.
The head of the Russian delegation, presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, said he expected Ukraine's representatives to turn up for the beginning of discussions on Friday in Istanbul.
"We are ready to work," Medinsky said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app. He said his delegation had held "productive" talks on Thursday evening with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
Trump says he and Putin need to get together to solve Ukraine war. – AP
Zelensky 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," Zelensky 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," Zelensky told reporters.
Zelensky 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 Zelensky 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.
Diplomatic confusion
The 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.
While Zelensky 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.
Head of Russian delegation sent for peace talks in Istanbul says Russia aims for long-lasting peace. – Reuters
The 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 "this mindless war".
Hundreds 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.
Trump said he would go to the talks in Turkey if it was "appropriate".
"I just hope Russia and Ukraine are able to do something. It has to stop," he said.
Russia accused Ukraine of "trying to put on a show" around the talks. Its lead negotiator said the Russians were ready to get down to work and discuss possible compromises.
Asked if Putin would join talks at some future point, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:
"What kind of participation will be required further, at what level, it is too early to say now."
Russia said its forces had captured two more settlements in Ukraine's Donetsk region. A spokeswoman for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointedly reminded reporters of his comment last year that Ukraine was "getting smaller" in the absence of an agreement to stop fighting.
First talks for three years
Once they start, the talks will have to address a chasm between the two sides over a host of issues.
The Russian delegation is headed by presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, a former culture minister who has overseen the rewriting of history textbooks to reflect Moscow's narrative on the war. It includes a deputy defence minister, a deputy foreign minister and the head of military intelligence.
Key members of the team, including Medinsky, were also involved in the last direct peace talks in Istanbul in March 2022 – a signal that Moscow wants to pick up where those left off.
But the terms under discussion then, while Ukraine was still reeling from Russia's initial invasion, would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They included a demand by Moscow for deep cuts to the size of Ukraine's military.
Trump on Putin not travelling to Turkey for talks with Ukraine. – AP
With 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.
Ukraine rejects these terms as tantamount to capitulation, and is seeking guarantees of its future security from world powers, especially the United States.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Zelensky had shown his good faith by coming to Turkey but there was an "empty chair" where Putin should be sitting.
"Putin is stalling and clearly has no desire to enter these peace negotiations, even when President Trump expressed his availability and desire to facilitate these negotiations," he said.
Highlighting 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 "shadow fleet" defying Western sanctions on Moscow.
An aide, a diplomat and a spy: Who Putin sent to Turkey
Just over an hour before Moscow's midnight on May 14, the Kremlin published the names of those who would attend:
Vladimir Medinsky
Kremlin aide to head the delegation
Born in Soviet Ukraine, Medinsky helped lead the 2022 peace talks which ultimately failed.
Educated at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Medinsky was behind a new history textbook for schools which reflect Putin's historical view: pride at the achievements of the superpower Soviet Union, indignation at the humiliations of the Soviet collapse, and acclaim for the "rebirth" of Russia under the former KGB spy's rule which began on the last day of 1999.
He is chairman of the ultra-patriotic Russian Military Historical Society.
Mikhail Galuzin
Deputy Foreign Minister
Oversees relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of former Soviet republics.
Educated at Moscow State University's Institute of Asian and African Studies. Speaks fluent Japanese and English.
Igor Kostyukov
Director of Russian military intelligence (GRU)
The GRU is one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world. Kostyukov was the first naval officer to head GRU.
Alexander Fomin
Deputy Defence Minister
He also took part in the 2022 talks on Ukraine.
Additionally, Putin approved a list of experts for the negotiations.
Alexander Zorin
First deputy chief of information of the directorate of the General Staff
Born in Soviet Ukraine. He helped lead Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war and is known for seeking to reconcile sides.
Yelena Podobreyevskaya
Deputy head of the Kremlin directorate for humanitarian policy
Alexei Polishchuk
Director of the foreign ministry's CIS department dealing with Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova
V. Shevtsov
Deputy head of the main directorate for international military cooperation at the defence ministry
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha meets with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Senator Lindsey Graham in Antalya, Turkey. – Reuters
The snakes and ladders of a possible peace deal
Russia and Ukraine say they want to talk about peace so what are the contours of any potential peace deal – and what are the dangers?
Security guarantee
Ukraine, which was subject to a full-scale invasion in 2022 and saw Russia annex Crimea in 2014, says it needs security guarantees from the major powers – primarily the United States.
It wants more than the 1994 Budapest Memorandum under which Russia, the US and Britain agreed to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and refrain from the use of force against Ukraine. Under that deal, the powers simply promised to go to the United Nations Security Council if Ukraine was attacked.
The problem, say sources involved in the discussions, is that any security guarantee that has teeth would lock the West into a potential future war with Russia – and any security deal without teeth would leave Ukraine exposed.
Under draft proposals for a possible peace settlement seen by Reuters, diplomats spoke of a "robust security guarantee", including possibly an Article 5-like agreement. Article 5 of the NATO treaty commits allies to defend each other in the event of an attack, though Ukraine is not a member of the alliance.
As part of a failed 2022 deal, Ukraine would have agreed to permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, and other nations including Belarus, Canada, Germany, Israel, Poland and Turkey, according to a draft seen by Reuters.
But officials in Kyiv say agreeing to Ukrainian neutrality is a red line they will not cross.
NATO and neutrality
Russia has repeatedly said that possible NATO membership for Kyiv was a cause of the war, is unacceptable and that Ukraine must be neutral – with no foreign bases. Zelensky has said it is not for Moscow to decide Ukraine's alliances.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members. Ukraine in 2019 amended its constitution, committing to the path of full membership of NATO and the European Union.
US envoy General Keith Kellogg has said NATO membership for Ukraine is "off the table". US President Donald Trump has said past US support for Ukraine's membership of NATO was a cause of the war.
In 2022, Ukraine and Russia discussed permanent neutrality. Russia wanted limits on the Ukrainian military, according to a copy of a potential agreement reviewed by Reuters. Ukraine staunchly opposes the idea of curbs to the size and capabilities of its armed forces.
Russia has said it has no objections to Ukraine seeking EU membership, though some members of the bloc could oppose Kyiv's bid.
Territory
Moscow controls about a fifth of Ukraine and says the territory is now formally part of Russia, a position most countries do not accept.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Russian forces control almost all of Luhansk, and more than 70 per cent of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, according to Russian estimates. Russia also controls a sliver of Kharkiv region.
In Putin's most detailed public proposals for peace, outlined in June 2024, he said Ukraine would have to withdraw from the entirety of those regions – so even from areas not currently under Russian control.
Under a draft peace plan crafted by the Trump administration, the US would de jure recognise Russian control of Crimea, and de facto recognise Russian control of Luhansk and parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Kherson.
Ukraine would regain territory in Kharkiv region, while the US would control and administer Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is currently controlled by Russia.
Kyiv says that legally recognising Russian sovereignty over occupied areas is out of the question and would violate Ukraine's constitution, but that territorial matters could be discussed at talks once a ceasefire is in place.
"The major issues here are the regions, the nuclear plant, it's how the Ukrainians are able to use the Dnieper River and get out to the ocean," Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told Breitbart News last week.
Sanctions
Russia wants Western sanctions lifted but is sceptical that they will be lifted soon. Even if the US lifted sanctions, EU and other Western sanctions – such as those imposed by Australia, Britain, Canada and Japan – could remain for years to come. Ukraine wants the sanctions to remain in place.
Reuters has reported that the US government is studying ways it could ease sanctions on Russia's energy sector as part of a broad plan to enable Washington to deliver swift relief if Moscow agrees to end the Ukraine war.
Oil and gas
Trump has suggested that Putin, who leads the world's second largest oil exporter, might be more inclined to resolve the Ukraine war following a recent drop in oil prices, though the Kremlin said national interests trump oil prices.
Still, some diplomats have speculated that the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia are seeking lower oil prices as part of a bigger grand bargain that involves issues from the Middle East to Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that officials from Washington and Moscow have held discussions about the US helping to revive Russian gas sales to Europe.
Ceasefire
European powers and Ukraine demand Russia agree to a ceasefire before talks but Moscow says a ceasefire will only work once verification issues are sorted out. Kyiv says Moscow is playing for time.
Reconstruction of Ukraine
The reconstruction of Ukraine will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and European powers want to use some of the Russian sovereign assets frozen in the West to help Kyiv. Russia says that is unacceptable.
Russia could agree to using $300 billion of sovereign assets frozen in Europe for reconstruction in Ukraine but will insist that part of the money is spent on the one-fifth of the country that Moscow's forces control, Reuters reported in February.
Ukraine has said it wants all the $300 billion of seized assets to be poured into post-war reconstruction.