Ukraine to take part in peace talks, as we say, Trump and Putin need to breakthrough

Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that Ukraine will send a delegation listed by the Defense Minister to meet Russian officials in Istanbul for peace talks, but Russia accused them of not treating them seriously.

When he spoke to reporters in Ankara, he criticized the Moscow “low” Moscow. The boss, the presidential assistant Vladimir Medinsky, insisted that the Kremlin team had “all the necessary skills”.

Later on Thursday, the top diplomat Marco Rubio in the USA claimed that Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had to meet.

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

Rubio is also in Turkey after taking part in a meeting of NATO Foreign Minister in the south of the country.

In the past, Trump – who visited the Middle East – also made it also made that significant progress in the peace talks were unlikely until he and Putin personally met.

When asked by the BBC on board Air Force One, when he was disappointed with the Russian delegation level, he said: “Look, nothing will happen until Putin and I come together.”

“He didn't go when I wasn't there and I don't think something will happen, whether you like it or not until he and I come together, but we have to solve it because too many people die,” he added.

Trump said he would take part in Turkey on Friday if it was “appropriate” and later said he would probably return to Washington on Friday, but his goal was previously unknown.

The talks should take place on Thursday, but in the evening it was no time that they would take place. Some reports indicate that they can take place on Friday.

The delegations from Turkey, the USA, Ukraine and Russia were to meet on Thursday in Istanbul for the first talks of Ukraine Russia since 2022.

Vladimir Putin proposed direct talks on May 15 in Istanbul in response to a call by European leaders and Ukraine for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.

Zelensky then asked Putin to meet him personally, but on Thursday the Kremlin said that the Russian president did not belong to civil servants due to travel.

In Ankara, Zelensky Moscow accused Moscow about Trump and Erdogan towards Trump and Erdogan because of the lack of service agents of the Russian delegation towards Trump and Erdogan and confirmed his challenge to the Russian leader to meet him personally.

“No time of the meeting, no agenda, no high delegation – this is a personal disrespect for Erdogan towards Trump,” he said.

In the meantime, Medinsky reporters in Istanbul said that Russia saw the talks as a “continuation” of the failed negotiations in 2022, shortly after Russia initiated his full invasion of his neighbor.

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

The Istanbul talks are the first direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine since the unsuccessful efforts in 2022.

Members of the Turkish delegation of Moscow were involved in these talks, and Russia stated that it would like to pick up where they stopped.

The discussed terms included the demands of Ukraine to become a neutral country, to reduce the size of their military and to give up the ambitions of NATO membership.

The fights in Ukraine continue to rage, and Russia said that his armed forces had captured two other villages in the East Dontesk region on Thursday.

Moscow now controls about 20% of the Ukrainian territory, including the Southern Crim peninsula, which is illegally attached in 2014.

In the meantime, British Defense Minister John Healey asked the allies of Ukraine to “put pressure on Putin”. After a meeting with German counterpart Boris Pistorius in Berlin on Thursday, Healey asked further sanctions against Russia to “bring him to the negotiating table”.