Ukrainians
and Russians Are in Turkey. But Will They Meet?
President
Vladimir V. Putin’s name was not on a list of Russian officials attending the
potential talks.
Marc Santora Andrew E. KramerAnton Troianovski
By Marc
SantoraAndrew E. Kramer and Anton Troianovski
Marc Santora
and Andrew E. Kramer reported from Kyiv, and Anton Troianovski from Istanbul.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/world/europe/russia-ukraine-putin-zelensky-ceasefire-trump.html
May 15, 2025
Updated 4:03
a.m. ET
Ukrainian
and Russian delegations have arrived in Turkey before a possible round of talks
to end the war between the countries, but from the start, there was confusion
over whether they would even meet.
On Thursday
morning, reporters gathered outside Dolmabahce, an Ottoman palace on the
Bosporus, where talks between Ukraine and Russia took place in March 2022.
Tass, a Russian state news agency, had reported that the day’s talks would take
place there, citing an anonymous source.
But as
television reporters from around the world jostled for space on the sidewalk
near the palace in Istanbul to do their stand-ups, no one seemed to know
whether the negotiations would take place — or whether there was even a
Ukrainian delegation in the same city.
The
potential talks have been guided by gamesmanship ever since President Vladimir
V. Putin of Russia proposed negotiations in Turkey last weekend, in response to
a European threat of new sanctions. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine
took up the offer and upped the ante, challenging Mr. Putin to meet him there.
European
leaders including President Emmanuel Macron of France had cautioned immediately
after Mr. Putin’s proposal for talks in Turkey were probably no more than a
Russian tactic to delay sanctions.
Late on
Wednesday, it seemed that Mr. Putin would not attend: His name did not appear
on a list of officials who would be present.
President
Trump told reporters traveling with him on his tour of the Middle East that Mr.
Putin would attend talks only if he himself was there, but that his schedule
had prevented this on Thursday.
“I was
thinking about going but it’s very tough because of what we’re doing today and
tomorrow,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday morning. “But, you know, if something
happened, I’d go on Friday if it was appropriate. But we have people right now
negotiating.”
Mr. Zelensky
has said he would only attend talks to meet directly with Mr. Putin.
The Russian
Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria V. Zakharova, said her country’s
delegation had arrived in Istanbul but did not offer further details. Ukraine’s
National Security Council declined to comment on plans for the talks.
A meeting
between Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky would have been the first between the two
men since before Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, launching a war that
by conservative estimates has resulted in well over one million dead and
injured soldiers on both sides.
If other
officials from Ukraine and Russia meet, it would be the first known direct
peace talks between the two countries since March 2022.
Mr.
Zelensky, speaking in his nightly address to the nation on Wednesday, said he
was still not sure how things would play out.
“This week
really may change a lot — but only may,” he said. “Everything is being decided
right now.”
How did we
get here?
The prospect
of a high-profile cease-fire negotiation in Turkey was the latest turn in a
rapidly shifting diplomatic landscape.
Mr. Trump
came into office earlier this year promising to bring the war to a swift
conclusion. He began his efforts on Feb. 12, with phone calls first to Mr.
Putin and then to Mr. Zelensky. He did not coordinate efforts with European
allies, who have stood united behind Ukraine.
After the
calls, he said he believed both Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky wanted peace. But
the Trump administration strategy was to pressure Kyiv, blaming Ukraine for
being invaded by Russia.
“You should
have never started it,” Mr. Trump said at one point, referring to Ukraine’s
leaders. “You could have made a deal.”
In late
February, Mr. Zelensky traveled to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump, but the
visit ended in disaster when Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance castigated
the Ukrainian leader in the Oval Office for not being grateful enough for U.S.
support. Mr. Trump then briefly suspended military assistance and intelligence
sharing.
At the same
time, he was trying to induce Moscow to agree to a cease-fire by holding out
the prospect of economic relief from sanctions.
With British
and French guidance, Ukraine moved quickly to mend fences with the president
and within less than two weeks, at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, agreed to
a key demand of the Trump administration: an immediate and unconditional 30-day
cease-fire, abandoning demands for security guarantees before a truce.
Mr. Putin
rebuffed that idea. But both sides agreed to a limited truce covering strikes
on energy infrastructure, although each accused the other almost immediately of
violations.
Mr. Putin
then proposed a three-day cease-fire to coincide with an annual Victory Day
parade in Moscow commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Kyiv
did not agree to that.
Overall,
during the first months of this year, while Mr. Trump was trying to broker
peace talks, the hostilities were far deadlier than the same period last year,
according to the United Nations.
On Saturday,
one day after Mr. Putin’s Victory Day parade, the leaders of France, Germany,
Britain and Poland traveled to Kyiv to issue an ultimatum: Russia either agreed
to an immediate and unconditional cease-fire or it faced a new round of
withering economic sanctions.
Mr. Putin
responded with his own gambit: a proposal for Ukraine and Russia to resume
direct negotiations starting on Thursday in Turkey.
Mr. Zelensky
answered swiftly with his challenge to Mr. Putin to attend the talks, trying to
put the onus on the Russian leader.
What does
Russia want?
When Mr.
Putin and other Russian leaders talk about ending the war, they focus on what
they call the “root causes” of the conflict — Kremlin shorthand for a range of
issues including the existence of Ukraine as a fully independent and sovereign
nation aligned with the West.
Specifically,
the Kremlin says it wants control over five Ukrainian territories, including
wide swaths of land it has failed to seize despite the years of war. Mr. Putin
has also demanded that Ukraine agree to strict limitations on its military, and
that Ukraine not join NATO. He has also never wavered in his insistence that
all Western military assistance to Ukraine needs to be suspended before a
cease-fire begins.
Despite the
staggering losses his forces have suffered, Mr. Putin seems to believe he is in
a strong position to make sweeping demands, gambling that his military will
eventually bleed out the Ukrainians.
What does
Ukraine want?
With Russia
holding the initiative on the front for more than 16 months, many Ukrainians
have concluded that they are unlikely to drive the Russians off their lands
militarily. And so Kyiv wants to freeze the fighting where it is and then make
a case that any formal recognition of Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian lands
violate basic tenets of international law and set a dangerous precedent.
Kyiv has
also said it will accept no limitations on its military. Its European allies
have vowed to continue to work to strengthen Ukraine after any truce to ensure
Russia is not tempted to attack again.
There are
also a host of other complicated issues at play, among them the return of
thousands of children taken from their families to Russia.
Nataliia
Novosolova contributed research.
Marc Santora
has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He
was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on
breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe,
based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa.
Andrew E.
Kramer is the Kyiv bureau chief for The Times, who has been covering the war in
Ukraine since 2014.
Anton
Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia,
Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
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