Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met on Friday in Istanbul in their first direct peace conversations in more than three yearsunder pressure from US President Donald Trump to end the most lethal conflict in Europe since World War II.
Live images of Turkish television showed Russian and Ukrainian negotiators talking with a Turkish delegation. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan delivered a speech at the beginning of the meeting.
The meeting at the Dolmabahçe Palace in the Bosphorus marks a rare sign of diplomatic progress between the parties in conflict, which had not gathered face to face since March 2022, a month after the Russian invasion.
Russia states that he wants to end war by diplomatic route and is willing to negotiate a high fire. However, he has raised a series of questions and concerns, stating that Ukraine could take advantage of the break to give rest to their strength, mobilize additional troops and acquire more western weapons.
Ukraine and his allies accuse Putin of wasting their time and say that he has no serious intention of achieving peace.
It was Putin who proposed the direct conversations in Türkiye, but rejected the invitation of the Ukrainian President, Volodimir Zelenski, to meet him in person. Instead, he sent a team of medium -rank officials, and Ukraine responded by appointing similar range negotiators.
The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, were also in Istanbul, where a series of meetings took place separately on Friday morning.
Rubio told journalists on Thursday night that, based on the level of negotiating teams, it was unlikely that there would be an important advance.
Hopefully I am wrong. Hopefully I am completely wrong. I hope that tomorrow the news says that they have agreed to stop the fire; that have agreed to establish serious negotiations. But I’m just giving them my opinion, sincerely, “he said.
Russia announced on Friday the capture of another village in its slow and slow advance in eastern Ukraine. Minutes before the start of the meeting in Istanbulthe Ukrainian media reported an air alert and explosions in the city of Dnipro.
The expectations of great advance, which were already low, were affected even more on Thursday when Trump said there will be no movement without a meeting between him and the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Trump, who concludes a tour of the Middle East and returns to Washington, said Friday that he will meet with the Russian leader “as soon as we can program it.”
kyiv looks for a high on the immediate fire
When exposing the priorities of kyiv, the head of the Ukrainian delegation said that peace would only be possible if Russia accepted a 30 -day fire, the return of kidnapped Ukrainian children and an exchange of all prisoners of war.
