Volodymyr Zelenskyy challenged Putin to meet him in person in Istanbul, but the Russian president will skip the talks
Hello and welcome to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia are set to go into their first direct talks in more than three years in Istanbul, but President Vladimir Putin is not included on the list of attendees.
Today, President Zelenskyy is in Turkey in a further demonstration of his commitment to peace, ready to enter talks direct with Russia and continuing to push for a full ceasefire as a first crucial step.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is due in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Thursday where he will meet with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Putin announced on Wednesday that he would send Vladimir Medinsky, a presidential adviser, to lead the Russian delegation. Also included in the delegation are Alexander Fomin, a deputy defence minister; Igor Kostyukov, an intelligence director; and Mikhail Galuzin, a deputy foreign minister. Significantly, Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, both top negotiators for the Kremlin, were not named in the Russian delegation.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is expected in Istanbul on Friday to take part in what are the first direct peace talks since failed efforts in the first weeks of the Russian full-scale invasion. Rubio met with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, on Wednesday in Antalya.
Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Wednesday that there must not be any settlement in Ukraine in the form of a “dictated peace” from Moscow. Addressing parliament, Merz warned of “militarily created facts against Ukraine’s will”, telling lawmakers it was “of paramount importance that the political west does not allow itself to be divided”.
A Russian missile attack on Wednesday killed three people at an industrial site near the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, said the regional governor, Oleh Hryhorov. Sumy sits opposite Russia’s Kursk region – a Russian missile attack on the city of Sumy on Palm Sunday killed 35 people.
