Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was sending a delegation led by defence minister Rustem Umerov for peace talks with a Russian team in Istanbul after it became clear Vladimir Putin would not be attending, dashing hopes of a breakthrough.
The warring parties are holding direct talks for the first time since March 2022.
However, US president Donald Trump said no movement should be expected unless he and Mr Putin âget togetherâ.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio echoed that view, telling reporters that Washington “didn’t have high expectations” for the talks in Istanbul.
At a press conference in Ankara, Mr Zelensky hit out at the level of the Russian delegation saying it proved Moscow was not serious about peace.
The Russian team is headed by Vladimir Medinsky, who also led the 2022 negotiations for his country. “Russia does not feel that it needs to end the war, which means there is not enough political, economic and other pressure on the Russian Federation,” Mr Zelensky said, asking for âappropriate sanctionsâ.
He had earlier accused Moscow of sending âstand-in propsâ for talks and challenged Mr Putin to âdemonstrate his leadershipâ and meet him face-to-face.
First talks in three years
Once they start, the talks will have to address a chasm between the two sides over a host of issues.
Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky is a former culture minister who has overseen the rewriting of history textbooks to reflect Moscow’s narrative on the war.
It includes a deputy defence minister, a deputy foreign minister and the head of military intelligence.
Key members of the team, including its leader, were also involved in the last direct peace talks in Istanbul in March 2022 – and Mr Medinsky confirmed on Thursday that Russia saw the new talks as a resumption of those interrupted three years ago.
“The task of direct negotiations with the Ukrainian side is sooner or later to achieve long-term peace by eliminating the basic root causes of the conflict,” said Mr Medinsky.
The terms under discussion in 2022, when Ukraine was still reeling from Russia’s initial invasion, would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They included a demand by Moscow for large cuts to the size of Ukraine’s military.
With Russian forces now in control of close to a fifth of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has held fast to his longstanding demands for Kyiv to cede territory, abandon its Nato membership ambitions and become a neutral country.
Ukraine rejects these terms as tantamount to capitulation, and is seeking guarantees of its future security from world powers, especially the United States.
Peskov offers no clarity about Putinâs participation in peace talks
Russia and Ukraine have been wrestling for months over the logistics of ceasefires and peace talks while trying to show Donald Trump they are serious about seeking an end what he calls “this stupid war”.
Hundreds of thousands have been killed and wounded on both sides in the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War 2. Washington has threatened repeatedly to abandon its mediation efforts unless there is clear progress.
Asked if Vladimir Putin would join talks at some future point, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “What kind of participation will be required further, at what level, it is too early to say now.”
Russia said on Thursday its forces had captured two more settlements in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
A spokesperson for Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov pointedly reminded reporters of his comment last year that Ukraine was “getting smaller” in the absence of an agreement to stop fighting.
Russia not serious about ending war, says Zelensky
Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian presidentâs decision not to attend but to send what he called a “decorative” lineup showed the Vladimir Putin was not serious about ending the war.
Russia accused Ukraine of trying “to put on a show” around the talks.
“We can’t be running around the world looking for Putin,” Mr Zelensky said after meeting Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
“I feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation – this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump,” Mr Zelensky told reporters.
Mr Zelensky said he would also not go to Istanbul and that his team’s mandate was to discuss a ceasefire.
Trump says no breakthrough expected until he meets Putin
US president Donald Trump said there would be no movement in the Russia-Ukraine peace talks without a meeting between himself and Vladimir Putin.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio later echoed that view, telling reporters in the Turkish resort of Antalya that Washington “didn’t have high expectations” for the Ukraine talks in Istanbul.
Mr Rubio, speaking in Antalya, later echoed that thought: “It’s my assessment that I don’t think we’re going to have a breakthrough here until the President (Trump) and President Putin interact directly on this topic.”
Referring to the current state of the talks as a “logjamâ, Mr Rubio said he would travel to Istanbul to meet with Turkey’s foreign minister and Ukraine’s delegation on Friday.
The diplomatic disarray was symptomatic of the hostility between the sides and the unpredictability injected by Trump, whose interventions since returning to the White House in January have often provoked dismay from Ukraine and its European allies.
Peace breakthrough unlikely as Putin skips meeting with Zelensky
Russia’s Vladimir Putin spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey on Thursday, instead sending a second-tier delegation to planned peace talks, while Ukraine’s president said his defence minister would head up Kyiv’s team.
They will be the first direct talks between the sides since March 2022, but hopes of a major breakthrough were further dented by US president Donald Trump, who said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Putin.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio later echoed that view, telling reporters in the Turkish resort of Antalya that Washington “didn’t have high expectations” for the Ukraine talks in Istanbul.
The head of the Russian delegation, presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, said he expected Ukraine’s representatives to turn up for the beginning of discussions on Friday in Istanbul at 10am local time.
“We are ready to work,” Mr Medinsky said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app. He said his delegation had held “productive” talks on Thursday evening with Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan.
Russia claims to capture two settlements as fighting on frontline continues
Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces seized two more settlements in their drive through eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv made no such acknowledgement and its top commander said battles raged over 1,100km of the front line.
According to Russia, their forces had seized Novooleksandrivka, a village near Pokrovsk, a logistics hub that Moscow has targeted for months without capturing it.
The defence ministry said its forces had also taken Torske, further northeast and near two other cities Moscow would like to capture in the longer term â Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in a late evening report, listed Novooleksandrivka as one of more than dozen settlements which it said had come under Russian attack.
The General Staff made no mention of Torske, but the popular blog DeepState said Russian forces had tried to seize the settlement but had been repelled.
The claims from either side could not be independently verified.
