Zelenskyy of Ukraine hopes to face-to-face with Putin in the proposed talks – Country
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend Ukraine's talks only if Russia's Vladimir Putin is there, the top aide to the Ukrainian leader said on Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed to attend a proposed meeting in Istanbul on Thursday, which has become the focus of his deadliest conflict since World War II. Putin hasn't said whether he will participate.
Both Russia and Ukraine are trying to show that they are working on peace after Trump prioritized the war, but they have not agreed to any clear path yet.
Putin made direct talks with Ukraine on Sunday as he ignored Ukraine's proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire. Trump then publicly told Zelenskiy to accept.
“President Zelenskyy will not meet with any other Russian representatives in Istanbul,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters.
His chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Zelenskyy's trip to Turkey showed that Kyiv was ready for negotiations, but Ukraine's position repeated that any negotiations must be carried out after a ceasefire.
“Our position is very principled and very strong,” Yermak said during a visit to Copenhagen.
Moscow did not say whether Putin would go to Türkiye.
“We are committed to finding ways to find long-term peace solutions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, releasing a war, killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. Much of Europe has provided weapons and financial assistance around Kiev, while Russia has turned to Iran and North Korea for support.
Trump has demanded that the two countries end the war and threatened to get rid of their efforts and a peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress.
If Zelenskyy and Putin do not hide their contempt, he will meet on Thursday, which will be the first in-person meeting since December 2019.
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Trump will visit the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in Qatar this week, and unexpectedly headed to Istanbul on Monday, a trip that crossed the gap between Europe and Asia.
“I think it's actually flying over there. I think if I think things will happen, but we have to finish it,” Trump said.
He added: “Don't underestimate Türkiye's Thursday.”
After that, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed Ukraine’s “Ceasefire Road” with his colleagues in Ukraine, Britain, France, Poland, Germany and the EU.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.
Reuters reported last year that Putin was willing to discuss a ceasefire with Trump, but Moscow ruled out any major territorial concessions and insisted that Kief gave up his ambition to join NATO.
Ukraine has said it is ready for negotiations but needs a ceasefire first, a position supported by its European allies.
Kiev wants strong security assurances as part of any peace agreement and rejects Russia’s proposal for limiting the size of the army. It said that once the ceasefire is in place, the territorial issue can be discussed.
Putin repeatedly mentioned the 2022 deal that Russia and Ukraine negotiated shortly after the Russian invasion, but never completed.
Under the draft agreement, Reuters reviewed a copy of it, Ukraine should agree to permanent neutrality in exchange for international security assurances of five permanent UN Security Council members: Britain, China, France, France, Russia and the United States.
Ukraine and its European allies told Russia that from the week, it must accept an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face new sanctions. The Kremlin replied that this would not respond to the final formation.
France said on Monday that European leaders who met in Ukraine over the weekend asked the European Commission to put together new “massive” sanctions against Russia's oil and financial sectors if Russia fails to agree to a ceasefire.
According to Russian estimates, Russian troops are under control of less than one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, almost all Luhansk, and more than 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Helsen regions. It also controls sliding in the Kharkif region.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the House of Parliament of the Russian Parliament, told Izvestia media in a remark on Tuesday that the talks between Moscow and Kiev may go further than the negotiations in 2022.
“If the Ukrainian delegation appears in these negotiations and authorizes the abandonment of any last-divide atums and seek common ground, I believe we can move forward,” he said.
– Reported by reporters from Costas Pitas, Steve Holland, Moscow and Kyiv, and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Elizabeth Piper, Costas Pitas and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Michael Perry and Joe Bavier
