Ukraine and Russia take new attempts to talk to peace

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Ukraine and Russia take new attempts to talk to peace

For the first time since 2022, Russia and Ukraine are to negotiate directly at the end of the war in Ukraine. US Secretary of State Rubio is not very optimistic.

In Istanbul, Russia and Ukraine today take a new attempt for direct discussions about the end of the Moscow War of Agency. The first meeting of the two countries in three years is now to take place together with Turkish representatives this Friday, as it was called from sources of the Foreign Ministry in Ankara. The Russian delegation awaits the Ukrainian side at 10 a.m. (9:00 a.m. CEST), said Moscow negotiator Vladimir Medinski.

The envoy of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin emphasized that the Russian delegation came to Istanbul “to” lead to direct bilateral negotiations without priority “. It would be the first direct discussions in Turkey between the warring parties for three years. In 2022 a peace agreement failed.

There was a hanging game all day on Thursday; Despite Turkish mediation, the two sides did not come together.

According to the Turkish ministry sources, trilateral conversations between the United States, Ukraine and Turkey as well as between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey are planned. It has not yet been decided whether there will be a four -way meeting in the USA, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. The US delegation is led by Foreign Minister Marco Rubio. Rubio said he would meet the Ukrainian Foreign Minister and the Ukrainian delegation. He added: “Someone from our team will be involved in the Russia talks.”

In the evening, according to his department, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan exchanged ideas with the Russian delegation in the Istanbul Dolmabahce Palace. Medinski spoke of good conversations with Fidan, whom he also explained the Russian position in conflict with Ukraine. According to Moscow, the Russian envoys had waived the Ukrainian delegation in vain during the day.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected criticism that Moscow only sent the second row to peace negotiations in Turkey. The most qualified specialists came, said Ministry spokeswoman Maria Sacharova from the state Russian news agency TASS. These experts are ready and competent for the discussions on all topics: “International law – please, the situation on the ground – please, questions of the fighting – please,” she explained.

The Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj described the delegation as second -class. He had demanded the presence of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin several times. The Russian President ignored the request. His envoy Medinski is considered a political lightweight and was also involved in the unsuccessful negotiations in 2022 shortly after the start of the war.

Medinski emphasized that his team had all attorney to negotiate permanent peace. The Russian delegation is ready and compromises on constructive conversations, said the politician, who is also chairman of the Russian writer’s association.

However, Rubio was pessimistic before the conversations. “We have no big expectations of what will happen tomorrow. And in my opinion it is completely clear at the moment that we can only make a breakthrough between President Trump and President Putin,” he said on Thursday. He doesn’t know when and where it would be, “but that’s the only chance at the moment,” Rubio told Fox News. Trump had previously expressed himself in a similar way.

Until the end, the US President himself has been open to making a short-term detour to Turkey from his Gulf State trip. Today he ends his trip with conversations in the United Arab Emirates. “If something happens, I would go there on Friday if it was appropriate,” Trump said during his Middle East trip with a view to possible negotiations in Istanbul. Without the presence of Putin and Selenskyj, however, this is considered very unlikely.