NEWSFLASH: Putin a no-show for negotiations in Turkey

Despite being the one to initially propose talks, Putin will not join the war talks in Istanbul — standing up both Zelenskyy and Trump, who have indicated a willingness to go.

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Turkey? Or Chicken?

The Kremlin has confirmed that President Putin will not travel to Turkey on Thursday for highly-anticipated negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation.

On Wednesday night the Russian government released the list of the delegation that will be in Istanbul for the first face-to-face talks between Kyiv and Moscow since the initial days of the war in 2022.

But the Russian president himself was not on the list. Nor was his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

Zelenskyy is expected to arrive in Ankara on Thursday, where he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He planned to go to Istanbul only if Putin did.

On Tuesday, he told reporters that if Putin does not show up, “it means only one thing: that Russia is not ready for negotiations.”

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin greets military commanders after the Victory Day military parade at Red Square in central Moscow on May 9, 2025. (Photo by GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images).

President Trump also indicated his intention to travel to Istanbul should Putin agree to high-level peace talks. Putin’s absence will make that far less likely.

On Wednesday, he told reporters on America's Air Force One that it is still "a possibility" as Putin would "like me to be there."

Supporters of Ukraine in the EU and the U.S. Congress will likely take Putin’s absence as a signal that he is not serious about peace, and use it as leverage to push additional sanctions. Both the EU and the U.S. Congress have new sanctions proposals before them that they could implement.

After the paywall: Who is in the Russian delegation, and what do we know about them? What are the details of sanctions that could come about to pressure Russia to change its course?