Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says he is sending a delegation to Istanbul for peace talks with Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday he is sending a team headed by his defense minister to Istanbul for the first direct peace talks with a Russian delegation since the early weeks of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Zelenskyy made the move after Russian President Vladimir Putin stayed away from a face-to-face meeting with him in Turkey that the Ukrainian leader had proposed in a flurry of diplomatic maneuvers last weekend.

Zelenskyy told a news conference in the Turkish capital Ankara the Russian delegation doesn’t include “anyone who actually makes decisions,” accusing Moscow of not taking efforts to end the war seriously.

But he said that to demonstrate to U.S. President Donald Trump that Ukraine is seeking an end to the conflict he had decided to send officials from Ankara to Istanbul — more than 400 kilometers (almost 300 miles) away — for their first direct talks since March 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor the previous month.

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