In addition to meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Turkish city of Ankara, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that he will be available for direct discussions with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Istanbul on Thursday.
In a hurriedly organized briefing in Kyiv, he assured reporters, “We will do everything to ensure that this meeting takes place.”
Russia has stated that it will make an announcement “as soon as [Putin] deems it necessary” but has not yet disclosed who will be flying to Istanbul. Since December 2019, Putin and Zelensky have not personally met.
The last time the two nations held direct negotiations was in Istanbul in March 2022, just a few weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
