Kiev, Ukraine - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he will wait for Russian President Vladimir Putin in face-to-face negotiations in the Turkish capital this week to discuss more than three years of war.

Putin hasn't said whether he will attend the talks, and U.S. President Donald Trump has urged both sides to participate in part of Washington's efforts to stop the fight.

Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv that he would negotiate in Ankara on Thursday. He said he plans to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the two will wait for Putin to arrive.

Zelenskyy said that if Putin chooses to meet in Istanbul, both leaders will travel there.

This is a breaking news update. The early stories of AP are as follows.

The Ukrainian Air Force launched 10 Shahed and bait drones in Ukraine during a night attack, the Ukrainian Air Force said in the smallest drone bombing of the year that the warring countries were preparing for possible peace talks in Türkiye.

The Kremlin has not responded directly to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's challenge to Russian leader Vladimir Putin meeting him at the tabletop of negotiations held in Istanbul on Thursday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to tell reporters on Tuesday whether Putin would travel to Istanbul and who would represent Russia in potential talks for the second consecutive day. "We will make this announcement once the president thinks it is necessary," Peskov said.

Russia said it would send a delegation to Istanbul without prerequisites.

The United States has been putting huge pressure on both sides since Donald Trump came to power in January to end the war.

Military analysts say both sides are preparing for a spring and summer campaign on the battlefield, where a front line of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) killed thousands of soldiers along the sides of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). Russia “quickly supplements frontline units for recruits to maintain battlefield initiatives,” the War Institute of Washington’s think tank said on Monday.

Zelenskyy's adviser Mykhailo Podolyak will meet in any other Russian official in Istanbul outside Putin.

Podolyak said the low-level talks would simply "drag" out of any peace process.

European leaders recently accused Putin of trying to urge a larger army to take initiative in the battlefield and occupy more Ukrainian land.

Russia effectively rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire requested by Ukraine and Western European leaders on Monday, when it fired more than 100 drones to Ukraine. Putin conducted direct peace talks.

However, the argument over whether a ceasefire should be ceased before negotiations begin.

"Ukraine is ready for any format of negotiations with Russia, but the ceasefire must first appear," Andrii Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said on Tuesday.

"The Ukrainian people are attacked by Russian missiles and drones around the clock, and negotiations are impossible," Yermak said in a video address for the 2025 Copenhagen Democratic Summit.

Putin has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government, especially Zelenskyy himself, saying his term expired last year. Under Ukraine's constitution, it is illegal for the country to hold national elections in compliance with martial law.

Further complications, a Ukrainian decree excludes negotiations with Putin from 2022.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met in London on Monday with senior diplomats from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Poland to assess Ukraine's ceasefire and path to peace, spokesman Tammy Bruce said. ”

If European countries do not comply with the full ceasefire that Ukraine has accepted from Monday, but they have not announced other punitive measures, they promise further sanctions on Russia.

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Follow the AP's report on the war in Ukraine