“Nothing will happen until Putin and I get together,” Trump told reporters on Air Force 1.
How the Russian-crane conflict began
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was just the beginning of the conflict. Here are the reasons why Russia has been fighting for Ukraine since then:
USA TODAY
- Vladimir Putin leaves. Zelenskyy says the Russian lineup looks “decorative.”
- It is not yet clear when the discussion will begin.
- “I feel rude from Russia,” Zelensky said. “There are no meeting times, no agendas or high-level delegations.”
ISTANBUL – Russia’s Vladimir Putin spurred the challenge of meeting Turkey’s Voldy Mie Zelensky, sending instead to a peace talks planned second tier delegation, saying his defense minister will lead Kiyykh’s team.
They will be the first in-person meeting between the camp since March 2022, but hopes for a major breakthrough have been further depressed by US President Donald Trump, who said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Putin.
Zelensky said the decision to send what is called a “decorative” lineup rather than Putin attended, showing that Russian leaders were not serious about ending the war. Russia accused Ukraine of “trying to hold a show.” It was not clear when the lecture would actually begin.
“We can’t run around the world looking for Putin,” Zelensky said on May 15 after meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in the capital Ankara.
“I feel rude from Russia. There is no meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation – this is personal rude. For Erdogan, to Trump,” Zelensky told reporters.
Zelenskyy said he himself has not gone to Istanbul now and that his team’s mission is to discuss a ceasefire.
Ukraine supports an immediate, unconditional 30-day ceasefire, but Putin says he wants to start talking first where details of such a ceasefire can be discussed. More than three years after a full-scale invasion, Russia has advantages on the battlefield, and says Ukraine can use pauses in the war to summon extra troops and gain more Western weapons.
Both Trump and Putin have said for months that they have been hoping to see each other, but no dates have been set. Trump has expressed growing impatience that Putin is “tapping me” after putting a lot of pressure on Ukraine and collided with Zelensky in an oval office in February.
“Nothing will happen until Putin and I get together,” Trump told reporters on Air Force 1.
Diplomatic chaos, president’s no show
The diplomatic turmoil was a symptomatic symptomatic of deep hostility between the fighters and the unpredictability, injected by Trump, which has often caused disappointment from Ukraine and its European allies since returning to the White House in January.
Zelensky was in vain waiting for Ankara President Putin, but the Russian negotiating team sat in Istanbul and was unable to speak to anyone on the Ukrainian side. About 200 reporters shattered them near the Dolmabath Palace in Boshols, which the Russians designated as the venue for conversation.
The enemy has wrestled for months for the logistics of ceasefires and peace negotiations.
Hundreds of thousands have been killed and wounded in Europe’s most deadly conflict since World War II. Washington repeatedly threatened to abandon mediation efforts unless explicit progress was made.
Trump said Thursday on May 16th that he would go to talks in Turkey if it was “appropriate.”
“I hope Russia and Ukraine can do something. That has to stop,” he said.
Asked if Putin would attend the talk at a future point, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “What kind of participation will be required, at what level, it’s too early to say now.”
Russia said Thursday that its forces have acquired two more settlements in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. A spokesman for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted to reporters that Ukraine has been “small” if there is no agreement to suspend the fight last year.
First lecture in three years
Once they begin, the lectures need to address the cracks between both sides surrounding many issues.
The Russian delegation is led by Presidential Advisor Vladimir Medinsky, a former Minister of Culture who oversaw the rewriting of history textbooks to reflect Moscow’s stories about the war. This includes Deputy Minister of Defense, Deputy Foreign Minister and the Military Intelligence Reporting Agency.
Key members of the team, including the leader, were also involved in the final in-person peace talks held in Istanbul in March 2022. And Medinsky confirmed Thursday that Russia was considered a reopening of those suspended three years ago.
Medinsky said the job is to achieve long-term peace, including removing the “root cause” of the conflict – the phrase Zelensky actually means prolonging hostilities.
The conditions discussed in 2022, when Ukraine was still involved from the first Russian invasion, are extremely disadvantageous to Kiev. They included Moscow’s demand for a deep reduction in the size of the Ukrainian army.
With the Russian army now ruled Ukraine’s closest to fifth, Putin is rapidly holding to his long-standing demands that Kiev give up his territory, abandon his NATO membership ambitions and become a neutral nation.
Ukraine rejects these terms as equivalent to surrender, seeking future security guarantees from the world’s great powers, particularly the United States.
Estonia, highlighting the level of tension between Russia and the US-led alliance, said Moscow temporarily sent fighter jets into NATO airspace in the Baltic Sea when Moscow attempted to stop the Estonian navy, which was thought to be part of a “shadow fleet” that opposed to Moscow’s western sanctuary.
