Russia published a list of officials who will attend peace conversations with Ukraine in Türkiye on Wednesday. But a key person was missing: President Vladimir V. Putin.
The absence in the list of the Russian leader, who ordered the large -scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that was the war, was a strong indication that Putin would not face this week with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has called him murderer. The Kremlin said Mr. Putin himself had signed the delegation.
President Trump, who was pressing for peace conversations before withdrawing the White House, had said he would consider joining the meeting in Türkiye.
“I was thinking about flying there,” Trump told journalists Duration a White House Press Conference on Monday.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump, who is on a three -nations tour of the Middle East, indicated that he would also skip the conversations and take the United Arab Emirates as planned. But he said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio Altendería.
“Tomorrow, we are all reserved, you understand that,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We are going to the EAU tomorrow. So we have a very complete situation. Now that it does not mean that you do it to save many lives and return. But I am thinking about it.”
Or Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump added: “I don’t know that I would be there if I’m not there. We are going to find out. Marco goes and Marco’s leg is very effective.” Together with Mr. Rubio, Mr. Trump Steven Witkoff and Keith Kellogg were expected to travel to Türkiye.
In a social media post on Wednesday, Mr. Zensky said he was “hoping to see who will come from Russia” before deciding what steps Ukraine should take with respect to peace conversations. Hello, he also urged the “stronger” western sanctions against Russia if Mr. Putin rejected the meeting.
The Kremlin said the Russian delegation would be directed by Vladimir Medinsky, a hard line assistant for Mr. Putin. It would also include the Minister of Defense Alexander FP, who was part of the Russian delegation in conversations between Moscow and kyiv in the week after the invasion of 2022; And other senior military officials and intelligence.
The bets could not be higher for both sides in the largest land war in Europe since World War II.
After more than three years of war, Mr. Putin’s position is that Russia is winning on the battlefield. But analysts estimate that Moscow has lost hundreds of thousands of troops to death and injuries. His soldiers and brigades have such an exhausted leg that he went to North Korea for troops, and Moscow has fought to replace the destroyed equipment, analysts say.
The Ukrainian forces, who made a bold invasion in the Kursk region of Russia in August 2024, have almost completely retired. They also have a leg that loses ground in the east of their country. As Trump has pressed for peace conversations, kyiv has emphasized that he needs security guarantees in the United States. Ukraine even signed an agreement last month that gives the United States a part of the future revenues of their reserves or strange minerals of the Earth. But the final agreement did not include explicit guarantees of the future security assistance of the United States.
As the pressure for peace has grown, the White House said in March that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to stop fighting in the Black Sea and work in details to stop strikes in energy facilities. Later than months, after the meetings were heroes in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine said he would support a proposal of the Trump administration for a high 30 -day fire. That new and fresh boost to truce negotiations, which hesitated after a public confrontation in the White House between Zensky and Mr. Trump.
Then, in April, Mr. Putin declared a “Easter truce”, ordering his forces to “stop all military activity” against Ukraine for vacations. Apparently I was destined to show an impatient administration of Trump that Moscow was still open to peace conversations. Mr. Zensky said that Ukraine would fulfill a truce while Russia did it, but kyiv said Moscow broke his own truce.
After Trump expressed his frustration with Russia’s refusal to stop the war, Putin ordered the fire of three days to begin on May 8, to mark the celebration of May 9 of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in World War II. Mr. Zensky described that promise as a “manipulation.”
Great Britain and France promised to gather a “coalition of the provisions” to ensure a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Then, a coalition of European allies cools to Russia a deadline this month to accept a high 30 -day fire or face new sanctions.
In his publication on social networks on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president said he was “ready for any negotiation format” with Russia in Türkiye.
“Russia is just prolonging war and murders,” Zensky added. “I want to thank all countries, every leader who is now pressing Russia, so that the bombing finally stops.”
Cicely Wedgeworth and Neil Macfarquhar Contributed reports.
