Zelensky agrees to talks with Russia, after Trump intervention

Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be waiting for Vladimir Putin in Turkey on Thursday, after Donald Trump swung behind the Russian president’s offer of talks before a ceasefire.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a press conference after a meeting of European leaders in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Picture; AFP.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready for direct talks with Vladimir Putin in Istanbul this week, after President Trump swung behind the Russian president’s offer of talks before a ceasefire.

Zelensky said he would be waiting for Putin in Turkey on Thursday, raising the stakes amid a flurry of diplomatic exchanges and brinkmanship over the weekend where both sides sought to balance not making any significant concessions, with placating Trump, who has demanded an end to the three-year war.

Putin didn’t immediately respond to Zelensky’s offer, which goes beyond the scope of the Russian leader’s suggestion of reviving peace talks among subordinates that petered out in 2022. Putin has repeatedly expressed disdain for Zelensky and questioned his legitimacy.

Trump’s support of the Russian president’s proposal, a switch in his position, had initially appeared to upend European efforts to bring pressure to bear on Russia to halt its war and hand a diplomatic victory to Putin.

“Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on social media Sunday. “At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the US, will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly!” But Zelensky, who earlier made a truce a condition of talks, responded quickly to Trump’s exhortation, demanding that Russia start a ceasefire on Monday, and saying he would be waiting for Putin “personally” in Turkey on Thursday.

“There is no point in prolonging the killings,” Zelensky wrote on social media. “I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses.” Zelensky’s spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request to clarify whether the president was removing his earlier condition of a truce before any talks.

Putin a day earlier had rebuffed a ceasefire ultimatum from Kyiv and its Western allies, instead calling for direct talks aimed at achieving his goal of weakening Ukraine and pushing back the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Trump last week had threatened to impose sanctions on whichever side in the conflict didn’t agree to a 30-day ceasefire.

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their bilateral talks wP.

The diplomatic back-and-forth over the weekend edges Trump closer to a fork in the road on a crucial foreign-policy campaign pledge of ending Russia’s war.

Ukraine and Russia’s positions remain far apart, and Trump has so far only sought to punish US ally Kyiv for what he perceived as its reticence to make a peace deal. Russia is still pursuing its initial war aim of dominating Ukraine, while Kyiv is seeking an end to the three-year invasion of its territory that leaves it in control of its own future and not vulnerable to future attacks by Moscow.

Putin’s offer of talks appeared calibrated to strike an accommodating pose and head off the growing pressure on Trump to impose harsher sanctions on Russia. Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the protracted negotiations to resolve a conflict he had promised to end within 24 hours of coming to office. He has said in recent weeks that he would walk away from negotiations without progress soon.

On the battlefield, Russia is ramping up offensives, according to DeepState, an independent Ukrainian battlefield monitoring group, which said Russia conducted more attacks during the recent three-day ceasefire called by Putin in early May than in the same period the previous month.

European leaders had threatened new sanctions on Russia if it didn’t sign up to an unconditional 30-day pause in fighting backed by President Trump.

In calling for talks, Putin is hoping to revive a peace process that stalled in 2022 over Russian demands for a neutered Ukraine. The Russian leader said the aim of proposals laid out at the time was to eliminate the root causes of the conflict – Kremlin shorthand for ending Ukraine’s continued existence as a fully independent and sovereign nation that strives to integrate with the West.

The Trump administration favours a single deal that would end the fighting and seal the peace. The US has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front line and recognising Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia invaded in 2014. Ukraine wouldn’t be required to recognise Russian control of its territory, but it would be barred from joining NATO.

Earlier Sunday, Trump said that he would continue to work with both sides in the conflict to bring the war to an end. “It will be a whole new, much better, WORLD,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!” Trump wrote, without offering details.

Zelensky said Sunday morning that it was a “positive sign that Russians have finally begun to consider ending the war” but added that the first step to doing so was a ceasefire.

Ukraine, backed by its allies, has in the past said that Putin’s call for talks on root causes appears again to slow-walk the truce offer. President Emmanuel Macron of France dismissed Putin’s offer of talks before a halt in fighting. “There can be no negotiations while weapons are speaking,” he wrote on X on Sunday, when he also delivered a similar message to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country hosted previous talks to end the war.

The first round of tentative peace talks began only days after the February 2022 invasion. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators initially met in Belarus before moving to Turkey and continuing talks on and off until April. Negotiations carried on – even over Zoom – but they eventually stopped altogether in June 2022.

Putin spoke to Erdogan on Sunday about his proposed talks in Istanbul starting May 15, according to Turkish officials. “Noting that a window of opportunity to achieve peace has opened, President Erdo an said that a comprehensive ceasefire would create the necessary environment for peace talks,” Turkey’s Directorate of Communications said about the call on X.

A previous time the countries met in Istanbul, a draft peace deal circulated that among other things banned Ukraine from using foreign weapons and capped its troop numbers. Putin said of the draft that “at the insistence of the West, it was simply thrown into the trash.” The Russian leader said he wouldn’t rule out extending the terms of a truce he announced earlier this month to coincide with the commemoration of the Soviet victory in World War II, where the Kremlin flaunted Russian military and political strength surrounded by world leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping. Zelensky didn’t respond at the time to that ceasefire offer, reiterating that a 30-day pause was needed to begin diplomatic negotiations.

The three-day quiet didn’t materialise, according to statistics published by DeepState. Russia attacked more frequently along the line of contact between May 8 and 10 than at the same time a month ago, DeepState reported, indicating a mounting Russian spring offensive.

Dow Jones