Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will be waiting in the Turkish capital, Ankara, to hold a meeting on May 15 with President Vladimir Putin, and will only meet face-to-face his Russian counterpart, whose participation is still up in the air, and not other Russian officials.
Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on May 13 that he has invited US President Donald Trump, currently on a trip to the Middle East, to the talks, as the White House and Ukraine's European allies push for an end to the war, the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Trump, speaking in Riyadh after signing "historic" agreements with the Saudi government, said that potential talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey this week "could produce some pretty good results."
He said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be among the top US officials traveling to Turkey for the talks on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Zelenskyy, however, made it clear that Putin must be at the meetings for any progress to be made.
"It is with [Putin] that I must negotiate a cease-fire, as only he can decide on it," Zelenskyy said, adding that if Putin decides to travel to Istanbul -- where the meeting was initially expected to take place -- then he would meet him there.
"If he [Putin] takes the step to say he is ready for a cease-fire then it opens the way to discussing all the elements to end the war," he added.
SEE ALSO: Trump Signs Economic Deal With Saudis On First Day Of Mideast TourOver the weekend Putin proposed talks in Istanbul on May 15, to which Zelenskyy agreed. However, the Kremlin has not yet confirmed the Russian leader's participation.
“As soon as the president considers it necessary, we will make an announcement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow, adding Russia continues to "move forward with preparations for the talks."
The European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said on May 13 that Putin wouldn't "dare" to show up at the meeting as "Russia is clearly playing games, trying to buy time."
"I don't think they (Russia) are interested in peace. They are still bombing Ukraine. If they were interested in peace, they could stop right now," Kallas told reporters at a democracy summit in Copenhagen.
Sources told US media outlets that senior Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg will travel to Istanbul for the talks, while Rubio is scheduled to be in Turkey for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in addition to the talks.
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In the past, Putin has questioned Zelenskyy's legitimacy.
"If Putin shows up in Istanbul, it would already be a defeat. Simply entering negotiations with Zelenskyy would signal a loss for him -- especially if he arrives under pressure, to a summit he clearly never planned to attend," Alexander Friedman, a Russian political observer and historian, told Current Time on May 13.
"Most likely, Russia won't be able to offer anything that would satisfy the Americans, the Ukrainians, or the Europeans. That could mark the end of the negotiations altogether."
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks on May 12 with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss Moscow's direct talks with Kyiv, a proposal that came from Putin at the weekend, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The planned direct talks would be the first between the two sides since March 2022, in the early days of the full-scale war launched by Russia the previous month.
Oleh Saakyan, a political commentator who spoke with Current Time, said both Ukraine and Europe know they cannot trust Putin and that he likely has begun preparing a new stage of the war and strengthened his positions through talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Moscow last week.
"The whole cease-fire and talks spectacle has been staged for one spectator -- Trump -- in order to expose Putin as someone you can't do business with," said Saakyan, who also cast doubt on the prospect of Putin traveling to Istanbul or any agreements coming from there.
"The focus is likely now to shift toward the trans-Atlantic axis and the readiness of the West to actually and jointly impose sanctions on Russia," he said. "This is key now, and it will greatly shape the future of talks."
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, told the Izvestia media outlet that the talks between Moscow and Kyiv can move further than they did in the 2022 discussions.
"If the Ukrainian delegation shows up at these talks with a mandate to abandon any ultimatums and look for common ground, I am sure that we could move forward even further than we did," Izvestia quoted Kosachev as saying.