The confusion revolved around the high -risk peace conversations between Russia and Ukraine requested by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, since the Kremlin confirmed that Putin himself would skip the negotiations.
The chaos on the start date, the location and if any of the parties would participate for chaotic scenes in Ankara, Turkey, Capital, Antalya and Estanbul, out of whose conversations of the Ottoman era, about 200 journalists and crew were not a clear idea of when the conversations would arrive.
A confusing round between kyiv, Moscow and the Trump administration wrote the hopes of the president of the United States of a three -road meeting that involved Putin and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
When asked on Thursday if Putin would attend conversations in Türkiye, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN “no.”
Putin made the “negotiation suggestion” without prior conditions “after the Ukrainian allies, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom presented an ultimatum to Moscow to accept the proposal of Alto El Fuego or face additional sanctions.
It is expected that the non -show of the Russian leader further antagonize the White House, which has significantly changed its tone during the war in recent weeks. Even after his historic Oval office party with Zelenskyy, vice president JD Vance has changed to accuse Moscow of “asking too much”, in bilateral peace conversations that senior Trump administration officials have maintained with Russia in recent weeks.
That is partly due to the fact that Trump’s great complaint with Ukraine, that US taxpayers have mostly financed the defense of Ukraine, calmed down after the two nations reached mineral agreements that would somehow go to pay US military aid.
Zelenskyy has also presented himself as fulfilled, supporting Trump’s calls for a high immediate fire between Ukraine and Russia.
Trump has said that “he is always considering” additional sanctions against Russia if he believes that Moscow is blocking the peace process, and officials also suggest sanctions secondary to Russian oil buyers.
After paying attention to Trump’s calls to accept Putin’s initial suggestion of the conversations on Sunday, Zelenskyy landed Thursday in Ankara, according to Reuters, and planned to meet with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyib Erdogan, Thursday.
That was instead of joining the initially planned conversations for Istanbul, after the Kremlin indicated Wednesday night that, instead of Putin, or even the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, was sending a relatively Junior team headed by the Kremlin Vladimir Medinsky Assistant and the Deputy Minister of External Affairs, Mikhail Galuzin.
“This week you can really change a lot, but only May,” Zelenskyy said in an X post on Wednesday, adding: “I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide what steps Ukraine should take.”
“Until now, their signs in the media are not convincing,” he added.
Although the appointment of a last -minute Junior team of Kremlin will do little to dissipate the Ukrainian and European accusations that Putin is not taking the closing attempts of Trump’s peace seriously, the Russian delegation that arrived on Thursday in Sonbul was “ready for serious work”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, María Zakharova, said in a news report at the same day.
In addition to the uncertainty about whether Ukraine would even send a delegation to the reduced conversations in Istanbul, kyiv and Moscow seemed to disagree during the starting time of the conversations.
Keir Simmons contributed.
