No high Russian name at the talks table: Ukraine shouts at the scandal. Trump: “Nothing will move until I meet Putin”
What was supposed to be the first day of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul turned into a “diplomatic script”.
In the morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went to Ankara together with his delegation, where he held a bilateral with the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. That the negotiations were not starting under the best auspices was already understood on arrival at the airport in the Turkish capital, in fact, the Ukrainian president immediately commented on the composition of the Russian delegation by stating: “We all know who makes the decisions in Russia, we do not yet know the official level of the delegation, but from what we see it seems a farce”. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately responded to him, Maria Zakharova, who called Zelensky from Russia “a clown, a bankrupt, a person with an unknown education”. Not exactly an exchange of “diplomatic” jokes.
In Türkiye there were also the two special envoys of the American president, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, assisted by the secretary of state Marco Rubio. Just him, interviewed a few hours before the start of the talks, said that the United States “want to see progress”, reaffirming Washington’s open and helpful position to resolve the conflict: “I repeat, there is no military solution to the current war between Russia and Ukraine. This conflict will not end with a military, but diplomatic solution. And first you will reach an agreement, the less people will die and the less destruction will be “
The “yellow” relating to the composition of the Russian delegation ended last night, when the Kremlin, after a silence that lasted almost two days, released the names of the negotiators engaged from today in the Turkish city. The delegation will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, assistant of the Russian president. Also present were the deputy minister of foreign Galuzin and the deputy minister of defense Fomin.
No great name, therefore, neither Putin, as hoped for by the Ukrainian president Zelensky, nor Lavrov, as hypothesized by the American media. But a long list of deputy ministers and technicians, not unlike the delegation that participated in the peace talks of March and April 2022 first in Belarus and then in the same Istanbul.
The Cremlin message appears clear: today’s started negotiations are a continuation of what has been started more than three years ago. The head of the Russian delegation Medinsky also said this: “We consider these interviews as the continuation of the peace process of Istanbul”. According to Moscow, in fact, the interviews of 2022 had led to a draft peace agreement, but the negotiation had then been abruptly interrupted by Kiev on western imbeccade. Ukraine has never confirmed this version, with Zelensky who has repeatedly declared how the negotiations were only in a study phase.
For Ukraine, as declared by Zelensky himself, the goal is to reach a ceased, considered as the base from which to proceed for further negotiations. A measure that hardly Moscow, in a clear advantage on the battlefield, will accept.
In any case, the delegation is composed of the Minister of Defense Rustmus Umerov, head of delegation, the Foreign Minister Andrei Sybiha and the head of the presidential office Andrij Yermak. In the afternoon Zelensky was very complained of the fact that the delegation sent by Moscow was of a lower level than the Ukrainian level, coming to say that the delegation of representatives “of a rather low level” was a clear sign “of lack of respect, towards the world and towards all partners”.
The American president Donald Trump also absent, who in the morning from Doha made it known that “if something happened, I would go on Friday”. However, the American president stressed that “nothing will happen until Putin and I will meet”, a short but uncomfortable truth.
