US President Donald Trump (center) said he might turn up and join if Ukraine-Russia talks happen on May 15. So far, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left) is the only one who has committed to attend. (illustrative image)

What To Expect From Proposed Talks In Turkey On Russia's War Against Ukraine

13 May 2025, 22:15 by Steve Gutterman · Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty · Join

All of a sudden, Ukraine and Russia are preparing for what could be their first direct peace talks since the spring of 2022, when negotiations launched shortly after Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor broke up.

The path to the talks expected in Turkey on May 15 has been a short one. On May 7, US Vice President JD Vance said direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were the priority. On May 10, European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in calling for a 30-day cease-fire starting on May 12, warning Russia would face additional sanctions if it did not agree to the truce.

In an announcement hours later, after midnight, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to turn the tables, calling for direct talks in Istanbul on May 15 and saying a cease-fire could only come as a result of negotiations. That put the ball in Ukraine's court -- and Zelenskyy batted it back, saying he'd be in Turkey on May 15 and challenging Putin to show up for a face-to-face meeting, their first in more than five years.

With the clock ticking down to May 15, details are scarce. Here's a look at some key questions: Who will take part? What might be achieved? Who will be blamed if there's no result? And what are some possible answers?

Who Will Take Part?

Zelenskyy is the only leader who has committed to being in Turkey on May 15. His announcement posed a challenge for Putin, who has frequently asserted that Zelenskyy is illegitimate because his five-year term was supposed to expire about a year ago following a new presidential election.

This provocative claim ignores the fact that Ukraine has been under martial law since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion in February 2022, meaning elections cannot be held.

Meeting with Zelenskyy could be seen as an acknowledgement that his power is legitimate, undermining one of the Kremlin's main false narratives about Ukraine: that its current leadership is part of the legacy of a Western-backed coup against the Moscow-friendly government in 2014.

It would underscore Putin's failure to achieve one of his main objectives in the 2022 invasion, namely the removal of Zelenskyy and the establishment of a Russian-allied government.

"If Putin shows up in Istanbul, it would already be a defeat" for him, political observer Alexander Friedman told Current Time. "Simply entering negotiations with Zelenskyy would signal a loss for him -- especially if he arrives under pressure, to a summit he clearly never planned to attend."

Not meeting with Zelenskyy, on the other hand, would open Putin up to assertions that he is afraid to do so -- as the Ukrainian president has claimed in the past and asserted again on May 13. He sought to turn up the pressure, with Reuters citing an unnamed adviser to Zelenskyy as saying he would meet only with Putin.

Adding to the pressure on Putin is the prospect that Trump could travel to Turkey. "I was thinking about flying over. I don't know where I am going be on Thursday," the US president said on May 12 before departing on a four-day trip to the Middle East. "There's a possibility there, I guess, if I think things can happen."

Trump said during his visit to Saudi Arabia on May 13 that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Turkey for the potential meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin. According to the White House, US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg will accompany Rubio.

What Could Be Achieved?

Whether Putin is present or not, analysts say Russia is unlikely to make concessions or climb down from its longstanding positions. Putin suggested as much when he called Russian journalists to the Kremlin for the late-night statement in which he called for direct talks in Istanbul on May 15; for one thing, he cast the prospective talks as a resumption of the negotiations that took place in part in Istanbul in 2022, when Russia was seeking, among other things, a pledge of permanent neutrality from Kyiv and strict limits on Ukraine's military forces and capabilities.

Russia "will not agree to a 30-day cease-fire" and "will try to lock in the old Istanbul framework to negotiate severe limits on [Ukrainian] sovereignty [and] security cooperation with the West. [Ukraine] will refuse," Russian foreign policy analyst Vladimir Frolov wrote on X.

Since the talks in 2022, moreover, Russia has increased its demands when it comes to Ukrainian territory, repeatedly saying that for any peace deal to work, Kyiv and the West must accept Russian control over four mainland Ukrainian regions that Putin baselessly declared in September 2022 were part of Russia -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson -- including large swaths of land that remain in Ukrainian hands.

Putin's call for direct negotiations means that he "sees an opportunity to draw Ukraine into an 'Istanbul-2' process, closely resembling the talks of March–April 2022, to pursue the same objectives -- now including the newly annexed territories," Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and an expert on Putin's administration, wrote on X.

"The reality is that neither Moscow nor Kyiv is ready to agree to a durable peace, as their positions are fundamentally irreconcilable," Stanovaya wrote, adding that "the American initiative to broker a deal is doomed to fail -- at least at this stage."

Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to NATO who was Trump's special representative for Ukraine negotiations during his previous term, also suggested a quick breakthrough is unlikely.

"This will be a long process. Putin still seems to think he can achieve his maximalist demands," said Volker, a distinguished fellow at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.

Who Is To Blame (If The Talks Fail)?

Since Trump started his second term with a push to broker an end to the biggest war in Europe since 1945 -- something he said he could achieve within a day or two -- Russia and Ukraine have stepped up their efforts to portray themselves as constructive and the other side as the obstacle to peace.

That was the subtext of the flurry of activity in recent days, and they are likely to redouble those efforts if this week's talks -- assuming they take place -- fail to bring progress.

Earlier in his term, Trump seemed mainly to see Ukraine as the recalcitrant side, a phenomenon that reached its peak at a remarkable blow-up in the Oval Office when Zelenskyy visited the White House on February 28.

The Trump administration has been expressing frustration with Russia more often in recent weeks than it had been before. On April 28, Trump said he wanted Putin to "stop shooting, sit down, and sign a deal," and Vance said on May 7 that Russia was "asking too much."

On May 11, when he urged Ukraine to agree "immediately" to Putin's proposal for direct talks in Istanbul, Trump added, "At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the US, will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly!"

That suggested that if the talks are unsuccessful and the United States says one side is particularly to blame, it could have serious consequences -- in terms of future aid for Ukraine, for example, or sanctions against Russia, which seems eager to improve its US ties.

Still, Stanovaya said that without internal upheaval in Russia or a battlefield breakthrough for Ukraine, which is unlikely at this point, external pressure on Moscow -- such as tighter sanctions -- would not change Putin's position.

"His objective remains to turn Ukraine into a 'friendly' state, and so long as he remains in power, he will continue either to fight or to coerce capitulation," she wrote.