Vladimir Putin said that he was ready to resume direct talks with Ukraine, which were interrupted in 2022, and suggested holding the meeting as early as 15 May in Istanbul without preconditions. He said in his night address on 11 May.
‘We propose to the Kiev authorities to resume the negotiations interrupted by them at the end of 2022. And without any preconditions. To begin – as early as next Thursday, 15 May, in Istanbul,’ the Russian president said.
As Putin said, he will discuss the initiative with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has already proposed a venue for peace talks. Within a few hours of the Russian leader’s speech, the presidents actually did have a phone conversation. According to Turkey’s TRT Haber news agency, Erdogan repeated his readiness to once more present Ankara as a neutral territory and emphasized the necessity of a general ceasefire in order to create conditions for negotiations. Russian Foreign Ministry also published the outcome of the dialogue but without mentioning the Turkish side’s call for ceasefire in the statement, emphasizing Erdogan’s ‘full support’ for the Russian initiative.
Whereas Kiev’s response to the appeal for talks has been more restrained. The head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, said that Ukraine’s absolute priority is a 30-day ceasefire, right now. Only afterward, in his opinion, will one be able to talk about ‘everything else’. ‘First a ceasefire for 30 days, then everything else,’ Yermak wrote in his Telegram channel.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed in a morning statement on 11 May: Ukraine is waiting for a ‘complete, long-lasting and reliable ceasefire’ from 12 May. Only after that is Kiev ready for a meeting. ‘It is a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to consider ending the war. The entire world has been waiting for this for a very long time. And the very first step in truly ending any war is a ceasefire,’ Zelensky noted, while not directly mentioning Putin’s offer of talks.
Despite this, according to the Axios newspaper, citing a Ukrainian official, Zelensky plans to come to Turkey on 15 May and may participate in the talks even in the absence of a preliminary ceasefire from Russia.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, for her part, said that Moscow’s initiative implies first discussing the root causes of the conflict and then a possible ceasefire. ‘Putin has expressed himself very clearly: first negotiations on the root causes [of the conflict], and then we can talk about a ceasefire,’ Zakharova noted.
Thus, the position of the parties remains diametrically opposed: Moscow insists on negotiations without conditions and before the ceasefire, while Kiev considers the ceasefire a precondition for any dialogues.
Nevertheless, the very discussion of a possible meeting on 15 May in Istanbul and the active inclusion of Turkey as a mediator indicate a diplomatic window of opportunity that could be a measure to de-escalate the war.
