Istanbul — Russia and Ukraine traded insults on Thursday as negotiators were due, tentatively, to meet in Turkey for the first direct peace talks in more than three years. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed Russia for sending a “decorative” delegation as he touched down in Ankara for a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Russian officials, for their part, called Zelenskyy “pathetic” and a “clown” for challenging President Vladimir Putin to show up in person for the talks, while touting further territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin made it clear on Thursday that President Trump’s push for a ceasefire in the three-year war — a war he repeatedly claimed he could end within hours — was not changing Moscow’s entrenched position on the standoff.
The exchange of personal barbs between Moscow and Kyiv undermined the chances of any breakthrough at the talks in Turkey. It wasn’t even clear if any talks between the warring parties would take place.
Putin did not come to Turkey, despite days of international pressure. Instead Russia’s negotiating team, which touched down in Istanbul on Thursday morning, was led by a hardline historian and Kremlin aide who has denied Ukraine’s right to exist.
“We need to understand the level of the Russian delegation and what their mandate is, if they are capable of making any decisions themselves,” Zelenskyy said from the tarmac at Ankara airport. “From what we see, it looks more like a decorative” deployment by Moscow, he added.
President Trump said he was keeping open the possibility of travelling to Turkey on Friday, if there was any meaningful progress in the talks. But the absence of Putin — as well as any top diplomats such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov — appeared to diminish the talks’ importance, or any possibility of a breakthrough.
Russia said negotiations would take place in the “second half of the day,” but Zelenskyy said he would decide upon his delegation’s approach only after meeting with Erdogan.
Russia hurls insults at Zelenskyy for calling on Putin to negotiate
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova hit back at Zelenskyy’s criticism of Moscow’s delegation almost immediately. Speaking at a briefing in Moscow, she called him a “dummy”, a “clown” and a “loser.”
Lavrov called Zelenskyy “pathetic” for trying to persuade Putin to turn up in person.
“At first Zelenskyy made some kind of statements that demanded Putin come personally. Well, a pathetic person,” he said in a televised address to diplomats in Moscow.
Mr. Trump, who has been pushing for a swift end to the three-year war, said he might go to Turkey if he saw meaningful progress.
“You know, if something happened, I’d go on Friday,” he said during a visit to Qatar on Thursday.
Speaking at a NATO meeting in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was “impatient” and willing to consider “any mechanism” to achieve a lasting end to the war.
Rubio is expected in Istanbul on Friday, “for meetings with European counterparts to discuss the conflict in Ukraine,” according to the US State Department said.
Putin himself made the surprise call for direct negotiations after Kyiv and European leaders pressured him to agree to a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire — a call he also rejected.
No nearer to a Ukraine-Russia peace deal?
Despite the flurry of diplomacy, Moscow and Kyiv’s positions remain far apart. The Kremlin’s naming of Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline aide to Putin though not a major decision-maker, as its top negotiator suggested Moscow does not plan to make concessions.
Medinsky led failed negotiations in 2022, in which Moscow made sweeping claims to Ukrainian territory and demanded restrictions on Kyiv’s military. He is known for writing ultra-nationalistic school textbooks that question Ukraine’s right to exist and justify the ongoing invasion.
Even as he touched down in Turkey, Russia’s defense ministry claimed in a social media post that troops had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine, Torskoye and Novooleksandrivka in the Donetsk region.
Russia also sent a deputy foreign minister, deputy defense minister and the head of its GRU military intelligence agency to Turkey.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv had sent a top-level delegation.
“Our delegation is at the highest level – the ministry of foreign affairs, the office of the president, the military, our intelligence agencies… in order to make any decisions that can lead to just peace,” he said in Ankara.
Russia insists the talks address what it calls the “root causes” of the conflict, including a “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine. These vague terms that Moscow has used to justify its invasion are widely rejected by Kyiv and the West.
Officials in Moscow have also repeated that Ukraine must cede territory occupied by Russian troops and pull out of some areas still under Ukrainian control.
Kyiv wants an immediate 30-day ceasefire and says it will not recognize its territories as Russian. But Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Ukraine might only get them back through diplomatic means.
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