TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The talks have taken place in the warring capitals of Moscow and Kyiv, from Washington and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to countries across Europe. Now, all eyes are finally turning to Istanbul to seek an end to Russia’s 3-year-old, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed restarting direct peace talks Thursday with Ukraine in the Turkish city that straddles Asia and Europe. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy challenged the Kremlin leader to meet in Turkey in person.
What will unfold remains unclear. The Kremlin has refused to confirm who’s going to Turkey and whether it will include Putin. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Zelenskyy will only sit down with the Russian leader.
Zelenskyy said Tuesday that “if Putin does not arrive and plays games, it is the final point that he does not want to end the war.”
What’s known about the possible talks:
How did the idea of talks in Turkey arise?
On Saturday, Zelenskyy hosted French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a show of unity. They issued a coordinated call for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine starting Monday.
The plan has received backing from the European Union and U.S. President Donald Trump, who had promised during his campaign to swiftly end the war that is now in its fourth year. The leaders pledged tougher sanctions on Russia if Putin did not accept the proposal.
In remarks to the media early Sunday, however, Putin effectively rejected the offer and proposed restarting direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul instead “without preconditions.” He did not specify whether he envisioned the talks to involve Zelenskyy and himself personally, or with lower-level officials.
Zelenskyy responded by insisting on a ceasefire, saying he will travel to Turkey — and challenged Putin to do the same: “I will be waiting for Putin in (Turkey) on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses.”
Who’s coming and why?
Pressed by reporters on who will represent Russia in Istanbul, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to say, stressing that Putin had outlined Russia’s position clearly enough.
Trump’s administration initiated separate talks with Russia and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia in March. But since then, the administration has indicated it might withdraw from the process if no tangible progress is made. Trump said Monday he was optimistic about the talks — a sharp contrast to a contentious Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy on Feb. 28. There is “the potential for a good meeting” between Putin and Zelenskyy, Trump said in Washington. He added he was “thinking about flying over” after his visit to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but later said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others from the U.S. will go to Turkey for the talks.
Podolyak on Tuesday told a YouTube broadcast by prominent Russian journalists in exile that the Ukrainian leader won’t be meeting any Russian officials in Istanbul other than Putin.
He added that “there are always people” in Zelenskyy’s entourage who can “conduct certain negotiations at corresponding levels” with the Russians but questioned the point of a lower-level meeting. “Undoubtedly, only Putin can make the decision to continue the war or stop the war,” he said.
Zelenskyy said Tuesday he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the capital Ankara, and wait there. If the Russian leader chooses Istanbul for the meeting, Zelenskyy said, then he and Erdogan will travel there.
If Putin doesn’t show, European and U.S. leaders should follow through with additional sanctions against Russia, he added.
What happened at talks in Istanbul in 2022?
The Kremlin billed Thursday’s talks as a “restarting” of peace negotiations in Istanbul in 2022, early on in the war, that quickly fell apart. Moscow had blamed Ukraine and the West for their alleged desire to continue fighting, while Kyiv said Russia’s demands amounted to an ultimatum rather than something the sides could mutually agree on.
Zelenskyy has said the Russian delegation’s demands included Ukraine’s recognition of Russian control over the Donbas, an area in eastern Ukraine consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk regions; constitutional amendments to declare neutrality; a significant reduction of Ukraine’s armed forces; and the surrender of long-range weaponry. “There were never any negotiations; it was an ultimatum from a murderer,” he said in 2022.
Putin accused Ukraine of derailing a peace deal that was basically agreed on and included clauses of Ukraine’s neutral and nonnuclear status and details on how much its army would be reduced. “The Kyiv authorities … just threw it all away. They turned it down,” Putin said in 2023.
The Kremlin has said repeatedly “the Istanbul agreements” could serve as a basis for further peace talks. After Moscow illegally annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022, Russian authorities started saying that Kyiv should also recognize “the reality on the ground.”
What are both sides’ demands to end the war?
Putin last year demanded that Ukraine cede the four regions, which it still does not fully control. He also wants Kyiv to recognize the Crimean Peninsula, also illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, as Russian; Ukraine also must renounce its bid to join NATO and drastically reduce its army. He also demanded that the West lift sanctions imposed on Moscow after the invasion.
Kyiv, in turn, refused to cede any land and wants robust security guarantees against future Russian aggression.
Trump, who has engaged in a broad diplomatic effort to end the war since taking office, has said that Crimea, “will stay with Russia.” He has also said that Kyiv was unlikely to ever join NATO.
What’s happening on the battlefield?
Both sides are preparing a warm weather campaign on the battlefield, where a war of attrition has killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said Russia is “quickly replenishing front-line units with new recruits to maintain the battlefield initiative.”
In 2024 and more recently, Russian troops have made slow but steady gains in several sections along the front.
Putin said in March that Russian troops have “gained steam” and “are holding strategic initiative all along the line of contact.” Zelenskyy warned that Russia was delaying talks in preparation for bigger offensives.
Last month, Moscow’s forces also declared that they fully reclaimed chunks of Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine that Kyiv’s forces seized in a surprise incursion in August 2024. Kyiv denied the claim, but it has been steadily losing ground there as Moscow, aided by North Korean soldiers, worked to push them out and leave Ukraine without a key negotiating chip.
Several attempts to establish at least a partial ceasefire have been unsuccessful. Russia effectively rejected a 30-day unconditional truce; the Kremlin instead declared two short, unilateral ceasefires for holidays in the last two months -– one for 30 hours at Easter and another for 72 hours to coincide with Russia’s World War II Victory Day celebrations. In both cases, Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of failing to halt the fighting.
Russia and Ukraine also pledged in March to observe a 30-day halt to attacking energy infrastructure that was brokered by the Trump administration. Both sides repeatedly accused each other of massive violations until the measure expired.
