Closing summary
It’s nearly 10.30pm in Kyiv and Moscow. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is sending a delegation, led by his defence minister Rustem Umerov, to peace talks in Istanbul with Russia, paving the way for the first direct negotiations between the two countries since the early weeks of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Zelenskyy will not be attending the Istanbul talks himself, after Vladimir Putin refused to travel to Turkey.
Vladimir Putin stayed away from proposed peace talks, leaving Zelenskyy waiting in the Turkish capital after challenging the Russian president to face-to-face negotiations. Putin instead dispatched a second-tier team of aides and deputy ministers to Istanbul, which Zelenskyy described as a “dummy delegation”.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, met with the Russian delegation at the Dolmabahçe palace in Istanbul on Thursday evening. The head of the Russian delegation in Turkey, Vladimir Medinsky, said Moscow was “ready for possible compromises” and that it considered the talks as a “continuation” of peace talks that collapsed shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said he will meet with Fidan and a senior Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul on Friday. Rubio and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff are expected to join talks at the Dolmabahçe Palace, though it remains unclear what role they will play. Rubio said the US “doesn’t have high expectations for what will happen tomorrow.”
Rubio said it had become “abundantly clear” that Donald Trump and Putin must hold “frank and direct” talks. “I don’t think we’re going to have a breakthrough here until President Trump and President Putin interact directly on this topic,” Rubio told reporters. He said the “level of the Russian delegation in Turkey is “certainly not indicative” of a breakthrough in peace talks.
Zelenskyy said Putin’s decision not to attend talks in Ankara showed that Russia was not taking efforts to end the war seriously. The Ukrainian president said he had decided to send officials from Ankara to Istanbul “out of respect” for Donald Trump and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Donald Trump said he did not expect progress on Ukraine until he meets Putin in person. Trump suggested he might still travel to Turkey on Friday “if something happened” at the talks. But by nightfall on Thursday, there was little sign that any last-minute summit involving the US president was in the works.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Zelenskyy was “pathetic” for demanding Putin attend peace talks in Istanbul. Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson accused the Ukrainian leader of being a “clown and loser”.
Keir Starmer accused Putin of “dragging his feet” after the Russian leader failed to show for peace talks in Turkey. Meanwhile the UK defence secretary John Healey, said Ukraine’s allies “need to act” and “put pressure on Putin” amid uncertainty over peace talks in Turkey.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has been in a meeting with a Russian delegation led by Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky in Istanbul this evening.
A source confirmed to Agence-France-Presse that the meeting at the Dolmabahçe palace is under way.
