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 ...
I really don’t care what Putin does to Zelensky but I feel like he’s trying to embarrass Trump and to make Trump look weak and ineffective while Putin appears to be in total control. For that reason I’m starting to hope that Trump works harder to put more Pressure on the Russian economy. I don’t think the Trump overture to Syria didn’t have Putin in his sights.
The government in Kiev doesn’t need legitimizing. President of Ukraine was elected in a free and fair elections by over 70% of the voters. The dictator of Russia changed their so-called “constitution” to allow himself this post forever and then murdered and/or sent to Gulag all of his potential opponents.
They deserve each other.
I really don’t care what Putin does to Zelensky but I feel like he’s trying to embarrass Trump
Putin trying to cut Trump down a notch or two on the world stage.
Putin originally had FM Lavrov going to Istanbul, that's his top negotiator. First Zelenski and then Keith Kellogg started spouting nonsense about what a ceasefire would look like and the Russians decided to back off.
If anything, Trump should be embarrassed by his own side.
Just a reminder that Zelensky is prohibited by Ukrainian law from negotiating with Putin.
Weren't you dudes writing for months all over the place that Zele is a warmonger because he doesn't want to accept ceasefire ?
Putin’s only plans are for war, more war, and more of the same.
“We must live in such a way that there are no discussions in society about whether war is necessary or how long it will last. We must live in such a way that anyone who is against war, against the true Russian spirit, culture, religion, is destroyed by society itself. This is the path that our President Putin has chosen. And this is not just my opinion, this is what all the healthy forces in the Kremlin, with whose representatives I communicate, think. There is a lot of war ahead, and thanks to Vladimir Vladimirovich for this. After all, he is saving Russia with war,” Alexandr Dugin commented
https://t.me/kremlin_secrets/5654
If anything, when your love for Russia starts veering into criticism of trump and his administration you can go straight to hell.
Some of you have a love affair with Russia that is absolutely preposterous.
Some of you have a love affair with Russia that is absolutely preposterous.
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consider where they live and who they work for ...
We have some real cuckoo birds here on Free Republic whose love for Russia and Vladimir Putin is so out of control they will even abandon Donald Trump and criticize trump. They long ago went deep into criticizing America as compared to russia.
Regarding ukraine, I’ve made it clear that I would rather see that country sink into the ocean before I will allow anything to harm Trump or his leadership of america.
Regardless all the name calling that goes on here about zeepers and neocons, I happen to think Ukraine was involved in trying to kill trump.
However, Europe is a real place that America has to be concerned about and Russia is a real enemy that is far more dangerous than ukraine. Putin is not a valiant Christian Warrior he is a violent despotic thug.
I have to marvel at the person today who is lecturing me we don’t understand the Russian and Putin brilliant way of conducting a war which is to deliberately make it go on for years rather than winning it quickly. What a bunch of deluded nonsense.
Go Trump and to hell with Russia or Ukraine to whatever extent they act against America’s best interests.
“Putin Sends Junior Team”
Boy that’s just like a democrat talking point. All the western media shall use the same phrase.
I agree that the government in Kiev is legitimate. But that’s not how the Russians see it. My comment was about why Putin would avoid anything that would confirm such, like a photo of Putin and Zelensky sitting across table from each other as equals. Not an image the families of all the Russian dead and disfigured would be happy to see. But which his rivals would be delighted to use.
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