Officials from Russia and Ukraine are set to meet today in Istanbul for their first direct peace talks in more than three years.
Delegations from the warring nations were due to meet on Thursday, but as the day wore on without any concrete indications of timings, the talks fell through.
The meeting was set to begin around 10am local time (8am BST), however Russian media reported it had been delayed until 12pm local time (10am BST).
Trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey are on the agenda, along with possible quadrilateral discussion including the US.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said on Thursday he did not have high hopes for a peace breakthrough.
“I want to be frank… we don’t have high expectations of what will happen,” he said.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, has arrived in Istanbul ahead of the upcoming Russia-Ukraine talks.
Earlier, Mr Rubio stressed his low expectations for any significant breakthroughs after Vladimir Putin declined to attend.
During his visit, Mr Rubio is scheduled to meet with Ukrainian representatives, while his aide, Michael Anton, will engage with members of the lower-level Russian delegation.
Vladimir Putin has dismissed General Oleg Salyukov as Commander-in-Chief of Russia’s Ground Forces, a role he held since 2014.
Salyukov, who was nearing mandatory retirement, has been reassigned as deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council.
A prominent figure in the military, he had overseen Moscow’s Victory Day parades for over a decade and, since 2023, served as deputy to Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, overseeing operations in Ukraine.
The Security Council, chaired by Putin and led by former defence minister Sergei Shoigu, is an advisory body with no direct military control.
No successor has been named yet. The reshuffle comes amid ongoing challenges in Ukraine and efforts to modernise and restructure Russia’s armed forces.
Russia launched a significant drone assault overnight, deploying over 100 Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) targeting various regions.
Ukrainian air defence systems successfully intercepted the majority of the drones.
The attacks resulted in at least four deaths and approximately 30 injuries across the affected regions.
In Kyiv, falling drone debris led to fires in the Sviatoshynskyi district, although no fatalities were reported.
Ukrainian authorities are assessing the full extent of the damage and casualties.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is preparing to attend a European Political Community (EPC) meeting today.
The EPC, which brings together the members of the European Union and 20 other countries, was established in 2022 on the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Starmer and Mr Macron will be joined by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Nato chief Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
The agenda is expected to focus on European security, energy cooperation, and shared responses to ongoing challenges posed by Russian aggression and global instability.
Keir Starmer has said Vladimir Putin “must pay the price for avoiding peace” ahead of a European Political Community (EPC) meeting in Albania on Friday.
“Putin’s tactics to dither and delay, while continuing to kill and cause bloodshed across Ukraine, (are) intolerable,” he said in a statement ahead of the summit.
According to Downing Street, participants in the EPC meeting will be “piling the pressure on the Kremlin… after Putin dodged US arranged peace talks in Istanbul yesterday”.
“A full, unconditional ceasefire must be agreed and if Russia is unwilling to come to the negotiating table, Putin must pay the price,” Sir Keir said.
The Ukraine-Russia peace talks will take place in “different formats”, a foreign ministry source said on Thursday evening.
Turkish officials indicated that “trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey are on the agenda” in Istanbul, and possibly a round of US, Ukrainian and Turkish talks.
“It has not been finalised whether there will be a quadrilateral format,” the source added.
While the talks are the first direct negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials in three years, a peace breakthrough is unlikely.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said Washington “didn’t have high expectations” for the talks.
The meeting between Ukrainian and Russian officials is poised to begin around 10am local time in Istanbul today (7am GMT), according to the head of Russia’s delegation.
“We are ready to work,” Russian presidential adviser Dmitry Medinsky said in a video on Telegram.
Mr Medinsky added his delegation held “productive” talks on Thursday evening with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
Peace talks are set to take place between Russian and Ukrainian officials today.
We will be bringing you the latest on the meeting in Istanbul, where trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey are on the agenda.
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Ukraine and Russia to hold peace talks – The Telegraph
