Former Diplomat Boris Bondarev said Putin proposed the talks in Turkey with the aim of convincing Trump that he was committed to peace, while continuing the fighting on the ground.
The Guardian: In his first comments after landing in Ankara, Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the Russian delegation that had arrived in Istanbul as largely a “theatre prop.” Vladimir Putin, who proposed the talks in Turkey, is not attending, according to his top spokesman Dmitri Peskoff.
Notably, Russia is not sending its two top diplomats – Yuri Ushakov and Sergei Lavrov – both of whom have taken part in earlier high-level negotiations with US officials in Saudi Arabia.
The Kremlin has said its delegation will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline aide to Vladimir Putin who headed the only previous round of direct peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul in 2022.
Says Zelensky, “We’re in contact with the American side, I believe they’ll also be present in Turkey at a high level,” he said. “As for the Russians, we’ll see. Nothing has been confirmed officially, but from what we’ve observed, it looks more like a theatre prop than a serious one.”
This is all just a performance – a simulation of peace talks,” Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who resigned over the war told the Guardian.
It appears Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be present for the talks— at least he arrived in Turkey a day before the talks were set to begin. it’s unclear what he will have to add as he has repeatedly said, “I will say this and I’ll repeat it, that there is no military solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This war is going to end not through a military solution but through a diplomatic one, and the sooner an agreement can be reached on ending this war, the less people will die and the less destruction there will be. And ultimately that’s what the president’s goal is.” (The Guardian)
Reuters is reporting that Ukrainian diplomatic sources said they are considering sending a team to speak with the Russian delegation in Istanbul. The Ukrainian side will be looking to see what their Russian counterparts have to say, but more importantly to see whether they are empowered by Moscow to have “a serious conversation.”
