Donald Trump said the Russian-Ukrainian peace agreement will "nothing happens" until he meets Vladimir Putin, weakening expectations for negotiations between Turkey's Russian and Ukrainian ministers.
The U.S. president's comments threaten to incorporate the latest peace efforts into chaos as negotiators from Russia and Ukraine will meet for the first time since 2022.
"Look, nothing will happen until Putin and I get together, okay?" Trump landed in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday as part of his Middle East tour before landing in the United Arab Emirates. He said Putin "apparently...will not go" unless the US president also attended.
Trump had previously said he was willing to bypass Turkey's talks, but decided not to attend after the Russian president made it clear in the 11th hour that he would not attend.
"Whether you like it or not, I don't think anything will happen until he and I get together," Trump said Thursday. "But we're going to have to fix it because so many people are dying."
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a ceasefire would be reached if technical negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul could be reached. The goal is to "at least try the first step of downgrading, which is the first step to ending the war, namely a ceasefire."
Zelenskyy went to Ankara on Thursday, after proposing a meeting but only met with Putin. Upon arrival in Türkiye, he regarded the Russian delegation as a "substitute prop", questioning the qualifications of its members and "whether they can make any decisions".
The Russian president last week proposed the idea of resuming direct negotiations with Ukraine, confirming later on Wednesday that he would not attend, instead sending his more prominent adviser, former Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, and other officials.
Russia has previously dispatched senior diplomats, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, to negotiate with the United States in Riyadh.
Medinsky led a Russian delegation to talk with Ukraine in Istanbul in early 2022, and ahead of the fierce attack, the Russian delegation spoke with Ukraine in early 2022, and Moscow has been keen to propose the current negotiations as a "restart" of these negotiations.
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations arrived in Istanbul and Ankara with no clear indication of where they would meet or what the authorization was.
Zelenskyy confirmed later in the day that his defense minister, Rustem Umerov, would lead his delegation.
He urged Western allies to increase pressure on Russia, including tougher sanctions if they continue to drag their feet to an unconditional ceasefire.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Putin seemed to be "trying to lead the U.S. president on the road to the garden" by refusing to appear in Istanbul.
“I’m pretty sure the US president won’t be happy about it,” Pistorius said at a press conference in Berlin. He insisted that if Europe’s strategy of threatening more sanctions fails, there will be a “Plan B”, but he said: “We can’t talk about B and C publicly before we make it clear.
The White House said earlier this week that Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is a special envoy to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, will travel to Turkey to participate in negotiations.
Laura Pitel's other reports in Berlin