A series of trilateral meetings are scheduled to take place in various formats in Istanbul, Turkey, starting on Friday, according to sources from Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ukrainian and Russian delegations will be joined by negotiators from Turkey and the United States. However, as of Thursday evening, it remained unclear whether Kyiv and Moscow would sit together at the negotiating table.
Talks between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and the Russian delegation began at approximately 8:30 p.m. (Belgian time) on Thursday. Following these discussions, Turkish officials announced that negotiations would commence on Friday.
Initially, direct negotiations between Ukrainians and Russians were expected to take place on Thursday morning for the first time in three years, but this did not occur.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be in Istanbul on Friday.
The Russian delegation is headed by an adviser to President Putin, Vladimir Medinsky, while Ukraine’s is led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov.
Medinsky is viewed in the West as lacking influence and was involved in earlier talks in Spring 2022 that were unsuccessful.
