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ReutersVolodimir Zelenski confirmed that Ukraine would send a delegation led by the Minister of Defense to meet Russian employees in Istanbul for peace talks, but accused Russia of not seriously treating them.
Speaking to reporters in Ankara, he criticizes a low -level delegation in Moscow. Its leader, the presidential assistant Vladimir Medinsky, insisted that the Kremlin team has “all necessary competencies”.
Later on Thursday, the best US top diplomat Marco Rubio said Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin should meet.
“My assessment is that I do not think we will have a breakthrough here, while President Trump and President Putin interact directly on this topic,” he said.
Rubio is also in Turkey after attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in the southern part of the country.
Earlier during the day Trump – who visits the Middle East, also suggested that significant progress in peace talks is unlikely as he and Putin met in person.
Asked by the BBC aboard the Air Force One, if he is disappointed with the level of the Russian delegation, he said, “Look, nothing will happen until Putin and I get together.”
“He did not go if I was not there and I do not believe that something would happen, whether you like it or not while he and I get together, but we will have to resolve it because too many people die,” he added.
Trump said he would attend negotiations in Turkey on Friday, if he was “appropriate” and later said he would probably return to Washington on Friday, but his destination is not known so far.
Initially, the conversations had to be held on Thursday, but from the evening there was no time for them to be held. Some reports suggest that they can now happen on Friday.
Delegations from Turkey, USA, Ukraine and Russia were supposed to meet in Istanbul on Thursday for the first face-to-face conversations Ukraine-Russia from 2022.
Vladimir Putin offered direct conversations on May 15 in Istanbul in response to a call from European leaders and Ukraine for a 30-day unconditional of fireS
Zelenski then challenged Putin to meet in personBut on Thursday, the Kremlin said the Russian president was not among the officials due to a trip.
In Ankara, Zelenski accused Moscow of “disrespect” to Trump and Erdogan over the lack of seniority of the Russian delegation and repeated his challenge for the Russian leader to meet him personally.
“There is no time at the meeting, no agenda, no high level of delegation – it’s a personal disrespect for Erdogan, Trump,” he said.
Meanwhile, Medinski told reporters in Istanbul that Russia saw conversations as a “sequel” of unsuccessful negotiations in 2022, shortly after Russia began its neighborly invasion of its neighbor.
“The task of direct negotiations with the Ukrainian side is to sooner or later achieve the establishment of long -term peace by eliminating the main main causes of the conflict,” Medinsky said.
EPAIstanbul conversations marked the first direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine after unsuccessful efforts in 2022.
The members of the Turkish delegation in Moscow were involved in these conversations, and Russia said it wanted to take where they had remained.
The conditions discussed included Ukraine’s requests to become a neutral country, to reduce the size of its military, and to abandon ambitions for NATO membership – conditions that Ukraine repeatedly rejects as tantamount to capitulation.
The fight in Ukraine rages on, with Russia saying its forces have captured two more villages in the eastern Dontesk region on Thursday.
Moscow now controls approximately 20% of the territory of Ukraine, including the South Crimea Peninsula, it illegally applied in 2014.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Defense Minister John Heli has called on Ukraine’s allies to “put pressure on Putin.” Speaking after a meeting with German counterpart Boris Pistory in Berlin on Thursday, Heli called on more sanctions against Russia to “bring him to the negotiating table.”