Ukraine to attend peace talks as we say that Trump and Putin are needed for breakthrough

Volodimir Zelensky confirmed that Ukraine would send a delegation led by the Minister of Defense to meet with Russian officials in Istanbul for peace talks, but accused Russia of not serious.

Speaking to the journalists in Ankara, he criticized the low -level mass delegation. Its leader, Assistant to the President Vladimir Medinsky, insisted that the Kremlin team had “all the necessary competences”.

Later, on Thursday, US chief chief diplomat Mark Rubio claimed that Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had to meet.

“This is my assessment that I don’t think we will have a breakthrough until President Trump and President Putin interact directly on this topic,” he said.

Rubio is also in Turkey after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in the south.

Earlier that day, Trump, which visits the Middle East, also suggested that significant progress in peace talks was unlikely until he met Putin personally.

Asked by the BBC on board the Air Force first, he was disappointed with the level of the Russian delegation, he replied: “Listen, nothing will happen until Putin and I’m going together.”

“He was not going when I wasn’t there, and I do not believe that what would happen, you like it or not until we are going to, but we will need to decide it because too many people die,” he added.

Trump said he would attend talks in Turkey on Friday, if it was “appropriate” and later stated that he would return to Washington on Friday, but his appointment has not yet been unknown.

Initially, the negotiations were to take place on Thursday, but as of the evening, so that they would not happen. Some messages believe they may now happen on Friday.

Delegations from Turkey, the United States, Ukraine and Russia were to meet in Istanbul on Thursday for the first negotiations of Ukraine-Russia since 2022.

Vladimir Putin suggested direct negotiations on May 15 in Istanbul in response to the call European leaders and Ukraine for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.

Zelensky then challenged Putin to meet him personallyBut on Thursday, the Kremlin stated that the Russian president was not among the officials from the trips.

In Ankara Zelensky, he accused Moscow of “disrespect” to Trump and Erdogan with the lack of experience of the Russian delegation and reaffirmed his challenge to the Russian leader to meet him personally.

“There is no time of the meeting, no agenda or high level of the delegation – it is a personal disrespect for Erdogan to Trump,” he said.

Meanwhile, Medinsky told reporters in Istanbul that Russia considered negotiations as a “continuation” of unsuccessful negotiations in 2022 shortly after Russia launched a full -scale invasion of a neighbor.

“The task of direct negotiations with the Ukrainian side is to sooner or later achieve the creation of long-term peace, eliminating the main root causes of the conflict,” Medinsky said.

Istanbul negotiations note the first direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine after unsuccessful efforts in 2022.

Members of the Turkish delegation participated in these negotiations, and Russia stated that they wanted to pick up where they stopped.

The limited conditions included Ukraine’s demands to become a neutral country, reduced the size of their military and abandoned the ambitions of NATO membership – the conditions that Ukraine repeatedly rejected as equitable surrender.

Fighting in Ukraine is a rage, and Russia stated that its forces seized two more villages in the eastern region of Dntec on Thursday.

Currently, Moscow controls approximately 20% of the territory of Ukraine, including the southern Crimea Peninsula, which it is illegally annexed in 2014.

In the meantime, UK Defense Minister John Hill called on Ukraine’s allies to “put pressure on Putin.” Speaking after meeting with German colleague Boris Pistaria in Berlin on Thursday, Hill called on further sanctions on Russia “bring it to the negotiating table.”