Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will send a low-level delegation to Istanbul for discussions with Russian officials as hopes for a breakthrough to ending the war in Ukraine faded after Russian President Vladimir Putin shunned the talks.
The first direct face-to-face peace talks between the two countries in more than three years were set to go ahead on May 15 at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul and be held in private without press access.
But with Putin deciding not to attend and instead sending a delegation of technocrats that Zelenskyy described as "decorative," there was little optimism the talks would bring the two sides closer to ending Europe's largest conflict since World War II.
"Unfortunately, they are not serious enough about the negotiations," Zelenskyy told reporters in Ankara after a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, adding that Defense Minister Rustem Umerov would lead the Ukrainian delegation.
Zelenskyy arrived in Ankara earlier in the day even though Putin had already shown he would not be traveling to the talks.
He still met with Erdogan in the Turkish capital but will not attend the peace talks in Istanbul saying "we all know who makes the decisions in Russia."
Zelenskyy had challenged Putin to meet him in Turkey, and the lack of a face-to-face meeting between the two dashed hopes for a potential major breakthrough in efforts to pause or halt fighting in the war, now in its fourth year.
Expectations that US President Donald Trump would also attend the talks were dashed when a Kremlin statement said Putin signed an order on May 14 naming four negotiators and four experts who will comprise the Russian delegation.
Trump, who is in the region on a four-day visit to several Middle Eastern countries, had said he would go if his presence would persuade Putin to participate. US media reported that envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg are still expected to be in Istanbul.
"Nothing's going to happen until Putin and I get together," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on May 15 as he was heading to Abu Dhabi on the third and final stop of an official visit to the Middle East.
When asked if Putin would go to Istanbul if Trump did, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "premature to say what kind of participation will be required and at what level" as Russia did not know yet how the negotiations would go.
NATO Chief Mark Rutte, speaking at the military alliance's meeting in Turkey, said "the ball now is clearly in Russia's court."
"The Russians are sending a low-level delegation and not taking up the opportunity President Zelenskyy has been providing," he said.
"Ukraine is clearly ready to play ball. But that ball is now in the Russian court, and I am really thankful for the fact that the United States is laser-focused -- the president and his whole foreign policy team including Marco Rubio -- on bringing peace to Ukraine."
The Kremlin statement said Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Fomin, who took part in talks held between the two sides in the weeks following Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022, would be among the negotiators.
The delegation will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin who also took part in the last round of talks more than three years ago.
Medinsky is seen as influential in advancing Russia's historical claims over large portions of Ukraine and has written textbooks with a nationalist view of Russian history that has been questioned by independent historians.
Igor Kostyukov, director of the Main Intelligence Directorate, is also named as a negotiator. Kostyukov was identified in the Kremlin announcement as chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
Negotiators held several rounds of talks in March 2022 in Belarus and in Turkey before the negotiations broke down.
Zelenskyy had said he was prepared to meet Putin face-to-face after the Russian leader called for direct talks. Zelenskyy also has said he would only meet the Russian leader, not a delegation of officials from Moscow.
Putin proposed direct negotiations "without any preconditions."
Can The Talks Achieve Anything?
There had been skepticism over the chances for success at the talks even before the news that neither Putin nor Trump would attend.
Lithuanian Ambassador to Sweden Linas Linkevicius told Current Time that while everyone wants a breakthrough, he doesn't see grounds for one because the starting positions held by all the parties are vastly different.
"There is no talk about Ukraine's interests, about [Russia's] legal responsibility, which is important because all those crimes committed by that country and its leader," Linkevicius said. "You cannot just push it all aside and pretend that we are just doing business from now on."
Linkevicius also predicted Russia would lecture about the "root causes" of the conflict and once they are addressed might talk about some sort of a cease-fire.
"In other words, there will be no cease-fire again," he said. "They will drag their feet to buy time and in my opinion prepare for a summer military campaign."
Russian independent political scientist Natalia Shavshukova told Current Time that Putin's real motivation was only to meet the US president.
"Putin's only interest is a direct meeting with Trump.... And Ukraine has become an excuse for the two leaders to meet," Shavshukova said, adding Putin doesn't appear interested in making a peace deal with Ukraine at the moment.
In an interview with Le Monde, Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president's office, said Putin's absence in Turkey on May 15 signals that "Moscow does not want peace and is not ready for serious negotiations."
"We don't trust Russia.... But we want to end this conflict, and we are ready to accept any negotiation format," Yermak told Le Monde.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha has already arrived in Antalya on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, where NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte chaired an informal meeting of foreign ministers from the military alliance.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is scheduled to take part in the talks on ending the war along Witkoff and Kellogg, met with Sybiha on May 14 on the sidelines of the NATO foreign ministers' meeting.
Sybiha said on X that he explained Zelenkyy's "vision of further peace efforts" during "this critical week." He and Rubio "discussed in detail the logic of further steps and shared our approaches," he said.
