What is known about the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations?

Ukraine and Russia are meeting in Turkey for peace talks. This time, US President Donald Trump has said he may fly in to join the talks. The last time the two countries met in Turkey was three years ago, but the sides failed to reach a compromise.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he will be in Istanbul for talks expected to begin on Thursday and invited Russian leader Vladimir Putin to meet there.

Zelensky said he hoped for a ceasefire with Russia starting Monday and would “personally wait for Putin” in Turkey after U.S. President Donald Trump urged Ukraine to accept Russia’s latest offer, direct talks in Turkey on Thursday. Ukraine, along with its European allies, had demanded that Russia accept an unconditional 30-day ceasefire starting Monday before holding talks. But Moscow has effectively rejected the offer, calling instead for direct talks.

It is unclear whether Zelensky's visit to Turkey is contingent on Monday's ceasefire. The Kremlin declined to immediately comment on whether Putin would attend. In 2022, during the early months of the war, Zelensky repeatedly called for a personal meeting with the Russian president, but was refused. He eventually issued a decree declaring that negotiations with Putin were impossible.

Who is participating?

The person who has spoken the most about his involvement is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who posted on social media earlier this week that he supports Trump's calls for direct talks with Putin.

"I have openly stated that I am ready for the meeting. I will be in Turkey. I hope that the Russians will not avoid this meeting," he wrote on the X network.

He also expressed hope that Trump would "be with us - at the meeting in Turkey." "That's a very good idea," he added. "We can change a lot."

His comments came after Trump said there was a "good chance" of a meeting between Putin and Zelensky. The two leaders have not met since 2019, when they both attended the Normandy format summit in Paris, a few months after Zelensky was elected president.

The US president said he was "thinking about flying in" for the talks during a visit to the Persian Gulf ahead of his trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which began on Tuesday.

It is not yet known whether Putin will attend, but it is unlikely. When asked about possible participants, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to say who might come to Istanbul from Russia.

"In general, we are firmly determined to seriously seek ways to achieve a long-term peaceful settlement. That's all," Peskov said.

The meeting comes after Putin made a surprise speech over the weekend, in which he spoke seriously about a peace agreement.

But Zelensky's top aides have insisted that the president will not meet with lower-level Russian officials unless Putin arrives. Kiev insists that Putin is the sole decision-maker in Moscow.

"If Vladimir Putin refuses to come to Turkey, this will be the final signal that Russia does not want to end this war, that Russia is not willing and ready for any negotiations," Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Ukraine and Russia held separate talks with the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia this year, but the meetings did not yield any concrete results.

The Ukrainian negotiations were led by Yermak and his former deputy, Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha, who took over as the country's top diplomat in September last year.

The Russian negotiations were led by the country's longest-serving government official, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Although he is loyal to Putin, he has no influence on the Russian leader's decision-making process on Ukraine and is not part of Putin's inner circle.

The negotiations were also attended by Yuri Ushakov, the Russian leader's top foreign policy adviser and former ambassador to the United States.

Ushakov said earlier this week that the talks in Istanbul should consider the results of "the negotiations suspended in 2022" and "the situation on the ground."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he discussed Russia-Ukraine peace efforts in separate conversations with Zelensky, Putin, and Trump.

Erdogan said that "a new window of opportunity for peace has opened" and noted that previous talks hosted by Turkey in 2022 were close to success.

What are the chances of reaching an agreement to end the war?

Many are not optimistic about the talks. While the Trump administration is hailing the two countries' return to talks after three years as a positive development, the reality remains that their positions are difficult to reconcile.

Putin is adamant that Ukraine must completely disarm, abandon its ambitions to join NATO, and hand over four regions, including Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and parts of Kherson that are not under Russian control.

Ukraine and its Western allies say the demands are an attempt to undermine the country's sovereignty and weaken Kiev under the threat of a second Russian invasion.

Moscow is also demanding that Ukraine recognize the Crimean peninsula as Russian territory, a red line that Kiev will never cross. Putin illegally annexed the peninsula, which borders Russia on the Black Sea, in 2014 after pro-European and pro-democracy protests in Ukraine.

Ukraine's European partners, including Britain, have insisted that Russia must agree to a ceasefire before peace talks can begin. If Putin refuses, they could impose further sanctions on Moscow.

Russia, for its part, has announced that it will not respond to the threats.

The last face-to-face peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, held in Turkey in March 2022, ended without any agreement.

Muhammad Dawood Asadullah