Istanbul-a diplomatic frenzy consumed the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul on Friday, since Russia and Ukraine sat to celebrate their first direct peace conversations since the first months of this three-year war.
In the midst of plans that change repeatedly, Moscow, kyiv, Washington, London, Paris and Berlin diplomats tried to navigate chaos and confusion before what could be a historical moment, or an imminent anti-climate.
Before the conversations began, President Donald Trump predicted that there would be no progress unless he and President Vladimir Putin were involved.
“I don’t think anything happens, you like it or not, until he and I meet,” Trump said about his Russian counterpart while talking with journalists on Thursday aboard an Air Force One flight to Abu Dhabi. “But we will have to solve it because too many people are dying.”
Trump said Thursday that he wanted to meet his Kremlin counterpart “as soon as we can configure it.” When asked what was on the way, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that “such a meeting is certainly necessary”, but that there must first be “expert negotiations, consultations and a long and intense preparation.”
Putin refused to be part of the delegation of Russia, a degraded mission that has angered Ukrainians and American envoys who have traveled here.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that the Russian team does not contain “nobody who really makes decisions.” His own emissaries will be led by the Minister of Defense Rustem Uumev.
“We are ready for a full and unconditional fire,” Uumerov said in a statement on Friday. Add that “peace is only possible if Russia demonstrates preparation for concrete actions.”
The unequal confrontation saw the Rubio Secretary of State arrive at the Palace despite an omen of his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, could not hide his anger and seemed furious when the officials swarmed on this mansion of the Ottoman era.
Russia has denied accusations that you are sending a weakened list.
“Our official delegation was approved by the presidential decree and has all the powers and powers necessary to carry out negotiations,” the head of his delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, on the Russian consulate in Estanbul, said Thursday.
It was the first face to face between Russia and Ukraine from the failed conversations of April 2022, two months after Russia rolled its tanks through the border.
Today, the Gulf between the demands of both sides is still as wide as the Bosphorus River that cuts Istanbul in two.
Russian officials say they see conversations as an opportunity to restart what they call “peace negotiations.” Actually, its conditions for peace, stopping the war that began invading Ukraine in February 2022, equivalent to a Ukrainian surrender. Kyiv has said that he will never accept these terms, which include ever agreeing to NATO and accept permanent “neutrality” between Moscow and the West.
NBC News asked the Russians on Thursday if Putin is prepared to commit, there was no answer.
Instead, Ukraine wants a base of 30 high in which to build future diplomatic victories. His European supporters say they will hit Russia with more sanctions if you do not agree. Although often accused of being much softer in Russia than Ukraine, Trump also suggested that he could hit Putin with sanctions if he feels that he is not moving forward enough.
The conversations in Istanbul are wrapped in “smoke and mirrors,” said Jonathan Eyal, international director of Royal United Services Institute, a group of experts in London.
“These are not negotiations between two parts willing to explore a high fire,” Eyal said. Rather, the parties “are trying to capture the public narrative of who is the obstacle to these discussions, and avoid the anger and anger of President Trump.”
Eyal compares negotiations with “a game of musical chairs: when music stops, who is still standing?” That is to say: “When Trump finally loses patience, who blames for not achieving fire? That is the whole game.”
On Friday he began with a meeting between officials of Ukraine, the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France. These parties “coordinated our positions” before the key meeting with Russia established for later in the day, said Umerov.
While the costumes spoke in Türkiye, through the Black Sea, violence continued in Ukraine.
Russia shot 112 Drones to kyiv, Odessa, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and Mykolaiv, according to the Ukraine Air Force. Most of these were shot down, but a small number exceeded and caused unpalified damage, he said.
Keir Simmons reported from Istanbul and Alexander Smith reported from London.
