Ukraine and Russia began their meeting in Turkey on Friday in the first attempt at a ceasefire negotiation and a format that also includes representatives of US and Turkey.
Attending the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Antalya, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington does not have high expectations for the Friday meeting outcome.
“Frankly, at this point, I think it’s abundantly clear that the only way we’re going to have a breakthrough here is between President (Donald) Trump and President (Vladimir) Putin,” Rubio said.
But until that point is reached, this is how the Friday agenda looks: Rubio has already met Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in the morning. Separate meetings between Russian and US officials are expected on Friday as well, though Rubio said he would not meet with Moscow’s delegates himself.
After that, Turkish and US officials first meet the Ukrainian delegation before the talks proceed in a trilateral format: Turkey-Ukraine-Russia.
The delegations are led by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov and Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.
Ukraine’s team are looking “to attempt at least the first steps toward de-escalation, the first steps toward ending the war – namely, a ceasefire,” according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s comments on Thursday in Ankara.
There are doubts whether the Russian delegation has the mandate for this. But Vladimir Medinsky responded, saying that his team ‘has the power to make decisions’ at a brief press conference on Thursday in Istanbul.
Kyiv and its international partners, including the US, are urging Moscow to adopt an unconditional 30-day ceasefire as the first step toward a broader peace deal, a move that Moscow continues to reject.
Kyiv repeatedly said it hopes to discuss a possible ceasefire. The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said on Friday that it remains Kyiv’s “top priority”.
Yermak also added that a direct meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, “who hasn’t arrived to Turkey for some reason,” is an important issue for the talks in Istanbul.
Russia presented the meeting as the continuation of the 2022 talks and stressed the need to address what it sees as the “root causes” of the war, the term used by Russia to describe Ukraine’s NATO and EU aspirations, suspension of all foreign military support to Kyiv, as well as demilitarisation of Ukraine.
