He said the in-person talks could begin on May 15th with a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called for direct consultations between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators to be held in Istanbul, Turkey on May 15th.
Speaking at a press conference on May 11, the Russian president called on Kiev’s Ukrainian government to offer to begin direct negotiations to end the ongoing Russian-Krayn war after more than three years of battle.
When he announced the call for the talks, Putin accused Ukrainians of abandoning a series of peace negotiations that both sides had entered shortly after Russian troops marched to Ukraine in 2022.
“It wasn’t Russia that destroyed the negotiations in 2022. It was Kiev. Nevertheless, Kyiv suggests that negotiations be resumed directly without prerequisites,” Putin said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 followed a long-standing lower-level battle in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, followed by a battle between troops along the Ukrainian government and the Russian Ukrainian separatists supported by Moscow. This previous conflict emerged after Russia-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Janukovic fled the country in early 2014 in the face of rising civil unrest.
Three days before the invasion began, Putin recognized Donetsk and Luhansk’s Donbas provinces as separate from Ukraine. When he announced the invasion on February 24, 2022, Putin declared that Russia would protect these two regions.
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Since taking office, both sides have pushed to resolve the conflict, and his administration has acted as an intermediary between them. Efforts to implement temporary ceasefires have proven challenging.
Early on, the Trump administration proposed a 30-day total ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow showed some interest in the proposal, but raised questions and stopped accepting it.
Russia and Ukraine also confirmed their support for a 30-day moratorium on attacks on each other’s energy facilities, but both sides insisted on continuing attacks.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration warned that if they don’t begin to see progress from both sides at the negotiation table, they’ll retreat from their midterm role.
At a Munich security conference event held in Washington on May 7, Vice President JD Vance said the next step in peace negotiations is for both parties to begin talking directly to each other.
“It’s very important that Russians and Ukrainians begin to talk to each other,” Vance said.
British Prime Minister Kiel Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Task met with Ukrainian President Voldymir Zelensky in Kiev on Saturday. European leaders demanded that Moscow immediately enter an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, and threatened to force new sanctions against Russia and increase military aid to Ukraine if Moscow refused.
Reuters contributed to this report.
