CNN
—
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky might meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Turkey on Thursday – if the Russian leader decides to show up for a summit that he himself suggested.
The possibility of the two men meeting face-to-face has caused major excitement, but the Kremlin has so far declined to say who is coming to Turkey and Russian officials have spent days preparing justifications and excuses for Putin’s absence.
The talks are unlikely to yield immediate results, and they almost certainly won’t bring the elusive “deal” US President Donald Trump has been promising since returning to the White House in January.
Yet despite the caveats, a direct meeting between Kyiv and Moscow at any level would mark a milestone in the conflict. The two are not known to have held direct talks since soon after Moscow launched its unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Here is what we know.
The talks were first proposed by Putin in response to the ceasefire-or-sanctions ultimatum given to Moscow by Ukraine’s European allies on Saturday, when the leaders of Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom demanded that Russia accept a 30-day ceasefire proposal or face a new round of “massive” sanctions.
Putin ignored the ultimatum, proposing instead “direct talks” between Russia and Ukraine.
This was likely a delaying tactic by Putin – something he has successfully deployed several times in the past. But it appears to have backfired.
The Europeans and Ukraine initially said there could be no talks before a ceasefire is agreed, but that quickly changed when US President Donald Trump got involved. In a post on social media, he publicly urged Zelensky to “HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!”
Putin wasn’t suggesting a one-on-one with his loathed Ukrainian counterpart. He said he wanted a restart of the talks that took place in the spring of 2022 and were attended by top-level diplomats, but not the leaders themselves.
But Zelensky raised the stakes by announcing he was going to travel to Turkey himself and called on Putin to do the same. The Ukrainian leader made it clear that he would not meet with any other Russian official, arguing that “everything in Russia depends on Putin.”
Trump, currently on a Middle East tour, added to the pressure by suggesting he might go as well, “if it’s helpful.” That idea was endorsed by Zelensky, who said Ukraine would be “grateful” for Trump’s presence. Trump also told CNN on Wednesday that Putin would “like me to be there.”
This has left the Russian leader in bit of a tight spot.
If Putin decides to show up – which most Kremlin watchers think is unlikely – he would undermine his own false narrative that Zelensky and his government are illegitimate.
But if he decides to stay at home, Putin will give Zelensky an opportunity to point out, once again, that Russia is not serious about peace.
This message would be aimed squarely at Trump. Kyiv and its European allies have long said they don’t believe Putin is seriously interested in negotiating peace.
Trump has previously repeatedly expressed his belief in the opposite, although he began expressing his doubts in recent weeks, questioning whether Putin wants peace after speaking to Zelensky on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral in the Vatican last month. The spectacle of Zelensky sitting across the table from an empty chair would likely reinforce this point.
This is also likely the key reason why Zelensky suggested a personal meeting with Putin, who, according to Ukrainian and Western intelligence services, had previously ordered his assassination.
The two sides are so far apart that it is unclear what the talks – if they were to happen – would be about.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that anything other than an agreement on an unconditional ceasefire would be a failure.
Putin, meanwhile, said that while Russia does not rule out that “during these talks there will be a possibility to arrange some kind of new truce, a new ceasefire,” the talks will aim to eliminate the “root causes” of the conflict.
The “root causes” he cites include long-held Russian grievances that include the existence of Ukraine – formerly part of the Soviet Union – as a sovereign state, and NATO’s eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War.
Neither is negotiable for Ukraine or its allies.
What happened the last time Ukraine and Russia talked to each other?
The last known direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow took place in Turkey and Belarus in the spring of 2022 – when it became clear that Putin’s initial plan to take over the whole of Ukraine and install a new puppet government in Kyiv within a few days had gone catastrophically wrong.
This left Russia scrambling, trying to achieve its goals through negotiations.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitor, said the agreement that was proposed by Moscow called for Ukraine to surrender its sovereignty and would have made Ukraine completely powerless in the face of any future attacks.
Once Ukrainian forces began liberating parts of northern Ukraine, finding clear evidence of massacres and other atrocities as they advanced, the talks started to collapse.
The Russian abuses uncovered in one town in particular – Bucha, just north of Kyiv – horrified the world and hardened the resolve of the Ukrainian people.
Shortly after Zelensky challenged the Russian leader to travel to Turkey, the Kremlin started to lay the groundwork for the possibility that Putin might not attend.
“This is pure spectacle, it’s theatrics. Because high-level meetings, especially in such a difficult situation, are absolutely not organized in this way,” the deputy head of Russia’s Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev told Russian state TV station Russia 24 on Monday.
He said negotiators “at an expert-technical level” would attend. Kremlin aide and former Russian ambassador to the US Yuriy Ushakov said the Russian delegation will be determined by the topics that will be discussed, which he said would include “both political and, I would say, a myriad of technical issues.”
The “myriad of technical issues” comment could be an indication that Moscow intends to continue with its strategy of stalling, haggling over every detail and saying no without explicitly saying “no.”
The stakes are higher this time, as both Trump and Ukraine’s European allies said they would impose more sanctions on Moscow if it doesn’t agree to the ceasefire.
Not much. The Turkish government said earlier this week that it was prepared to provide “all kinds of support, including mediation and hosting negotiations, to achieve peace” in Ukraine.
Turkey has played the role of the bridge between Moscow and Kyiv in the past, most notably when it brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative which guarantees the safe passage of Ukrainian ships carrying food exports – a rare diplomatic success in the brutal conflict. Russia withdrew from the pact in 2023.
As a NATO member, Turkey is invested in the conflict, but it is also seen as more amenable to Russia, with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan previously hailing his “special relationship” with Putin.
Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, and his foreign envoy, Steve Witkoff, both plan to be in Istanbul for the talks, a senior Trump administration official said on Tuesday, a statement confirmed by another source familiar with the plans.
The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also in Turkey, attending an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
As of Tuesday, the plan was for the US officials to observe the Turkish-facilitated talks between the Ukrainians and Russians.
Rubio, Kellogg and Witkoff all took part in some of the previous rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia, in which they acted as intermediaries, meeting separately with the Russian delegation and then, a few days later, with the Ukrainians.
This time, the fact that the two delegations might meet face to face is significant – even if their goal is more about satisfying Trump than reaching an actual deal.
