Posted on 05/14/2025 3:02:27 PM PDT by marcusmaximus
Ignoring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to meet for direct high-level talks in Turkey, Russian leader Vladimir Putin dispatched to Istanbul a team of junior officials, making it uncertain that negotiations between the warring nations would occur at all.
The Russian team is set to be led by Putin’s aide Vladimir Medinsky and deputy defense minister Alexander Fomin, the same men whom Putin dispatched to negotiate Ukraine’s surrender in the early days of the war. The last session of these talks occurred in Istanbul in March 2022, and the negotiations fell apart as Russia suffered a military defeat and withdrew its forces from Kyiv and other parts of northern Ukraine.
Zelensky, who is slated to arrive in Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday for separate talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said he would be ready to meet with Putin if the Russian leader also came to Turkey. President Trump, who has made ending the war in Ukraine his key foreign-policy priority, has also indicated he might have attended.
But Putin’s decision to send junior officials instead foreclosed the possibility of any breakthrough, Western diplomats say. By naming Medinsky, a former culture minister, as head of the delegation, they say, Putin has indicated that he’s unwilling to budge and seeks the same objectives as in 2022: the end of Ukraine as a sovereign state that is able to defend itself.
Senior U.S. officials are also headed to Istanbul, though it isn’t clear whom they would meet and when.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
It is a start.
First will be the pretense of discussions
Most powerful military compared to who?
Megaton.
Tell your Zelensky to show up for the talks in a proper suit and tie!
As an air-sea military power, we’re #1. As a land military power, one could argue it’s the Russians. Our military is naturally geared of r maritime and air superiority. Theirs is naturally geared to be a land power. Geography. It matters. No matter how much you didn’t like it in third grade.
Zelensky or someone from Ukraine either shows up or it is time Trump cutoff all aid to Ukraine.
Zelensky dragging his feet on peace talks is delaying any implementation of the minerals deal.
If Zelensky or someone representing Ukraine doesn't show up, Trump needs to cutoff all military aid to Ukraine and let the EU takeover.
Uh, check out my original post that started the exchange:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4317024/posts?page=4#4
:)
Yeah, Putin never said he was coming, the press created that fantasy. Trump knew, that was obvious too. I don’t know what Ukraine is thinking but it isn’t reality based.
Z is always begging for something and Erdogan is a nasty guy. Would be fun to watch the heads explode in that meeting.
Overall it is likely this is all a sideshow to the main event, which is the US budget and the problems unfolding.
That eventual legislation will not include anything for Ukraine for the reasonably simple to grasp cause
that the debate can’t get to the finish line as is, even without any more drain.
Nice group of lies you just made up.
That would actually make sense. And meeting with Zelensky directly would be viewed as legitimizing the government in Kiev.
Ceasefire while new weapons are incoming to Ukraine every day.
That's what I heard too.
Thanks!
Let’s see if The Global Ukie Homo shows up to point that out personally
in Turkey.
It is located at the site of the original Turkish backed Ukraine peace negotiations that Zelensky reneged on on what is very close to the third year anniversary of Zelensky’s walk away.
This has some symbolic significance on several different levels and it is obvious that Putin intends to make this an issue of what might have been three years ago and what now has to be done to stop the conflict.
The significance of Vladimir Medinsky and deputy defense minister Alexander Fomin leading the talks is most likely that Russia is telegraphing this is not a negotiation led by Russia's chief diplomat, it's an issuing of a last chance ultimatum by the head of the Russian military to end the war with a negotiated settlement.
If Zelensky continues to play his juvenile, grand standing games and tricks and continues to be unserious about ending the wars on realistic terms set forth by Vladimir Medinsky , then defense minister Alexander Fomin will provide a very unpleasant picture on how things are going to unfold if Russia needs to opt for a military solution to the problem.
Hopefully our dynamic duo of UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron who seem to love to interject themselves into the situation to stiffen Zelensky's resolve to fight to the bitter and and the last Ukrainian will be there to hear the news as well.
I hope that this works out but in reality this meeting is likely the last chance for peace and if things do not progress, the Russians are going to move forward with the military solution that is seems Zelensky and his backers seem to be maneuvering the Russians into for reason known only to them.
After a year of unreality and posturing, things are about to very real in the Ukraine and a lot of people on all sides of this insanity are going to get a major reality check.
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