Zelensky doesn’t want to meet with anyone but Putin

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky will not meet with other representatives of the Russian Federation in Istanbul on May 15 in the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as this is not a presidential format, said Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the presidential office. While Zelensky himself decided to change the negotiation format previously proposed by Moscow, which implied a meeting at the level of the parties’ delegations. At the same time, the special representative of the President of the United States, Steve Witkoff, recommended his own agenda. And, in particular, he again called for the return of the Zaporizhia NPP along with the Dnieper sites in the Kherson region, which is fraught with threats to the subsequent energy and water supply of new regions of Russia.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin does not arrive in Istanbul on Thursday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky will not meet with other Russian representatives, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the presidential office, said in a comment published on Tuesday. According to him, this is “not the format of the president,” and therefore Zelensky will not communicate with Putin’s assistant Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation at the talks in Istanbul in March 2022, when the Kiev authorities rejected the final agreement they had already initialed. At the same time, according to Podolyak, by the decision of the NSDC (National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine), it would be possible to eliminate a well-known obstacle to high-level negotiations, which President Zelensky banned by decree in the fall of 2022.

Yesterday, in another video message, Vladimir Zelensky complained that Moscow had not yet responded to his proposal for a meeting at the leadership level. “It’s a very strange silence,” he added. Although, in fact, the Ukrainian leader created the strange situation. Since, in response to Vladimir Putin’s proposal on May 11 to hold direct talks in Istanbul on the 15th without preconditions in order to resume the negotiation process interrupted by the Ukrainian authorities in the spring of 2022, the President of Ukraine hastened to announce that he would come to Istanbul personally. After that, US President Donald Trump told reporters that he had been very insistent on holding such a meeting and it was very important. Along the way, Trump also hinted at the possibility of his own participation. And on Tuesday, with a visit to Saudi Arabia, the head of the White House began his tour of the Middle East.

In this regard, a variety of assumptions appeared in the media. Moreover, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, only clarified at a briefing on May 13 that “the Russian side continues to prepare for negotiations to be held on Thursday.” And so far, the Kremlin has not given any other comments on the alleged Russian-Ukrainian meeting in Istanbul.

Therefore, political analyst Sergey Mikheev noted to NG, experts can only guess what the format of the planned negotiations will turn out to be. “In principle, it would be advisable for Russia to resume dialogue at the level of delegations. This format was used during the Istanbul negotiation process, which the Russian president proposed to resume. That does not exclude a summit meeting yet. But the appropriate decision may primarily involve negotiations between the Russian and American leaders. Whereas Putin’s meeting with Zelensky, in my opinion, is fraught with reducing the current situation to a domestic level. Because Zelensky clearly intended to make a farce out of the negotiations,” the analyst stated.

Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky immediately responded on social media to Donald Trump’s aforementioned comment: “Of course, all of us in Ukraine would like President Trump to be able to be there with us – at this meeting in Turkey. It’s a good idea. We can change a lot.” At the same time, he recalled that he supported all the initiatives of the head of the White House, including the 30-day cessation of hostilities.

However, the implementation of the mentioned idea, which was recently ultimatumedly demanded by the leaders of Western countries from the Russian Federation, just cannot “change much.” This was repeatedly pointed out in Moscow, where they consistently advocated the elimination of the root causes of the Ukrainian military conflict, which, in particular, would imply the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine while ensuring its neutral status and recognizing the real situation “on the ground.”

In such circumstances, it seemed symptomatic that the special representative of the US President, Steve Witkoff, who also advocated the early holding of direct negotiations, actually recommended his own agenda for them. According to his definition, the main issues in Istanbul should be the delimitation of territories and ensuring for the Ukrainian side the use of the Zaporizhia NPP, as well as its access to waterways, in particular along the Dnieper River to the Black Sea. Some things would be easy to resolve if the parties were brought to the negotiating table, Witkoff said. And, apparently, he forgot about how the agreement agreed earlier in Riyadh with the Ukrainian delegation on a 30-day suspension of strikes on energy facilities was further repeatedly violated by Kiev, as Moscow’s representatives regularly notified Washington. Not to mention the fact that representatives of the Russian Federation unequivocally rejected the possibility of transferring the NPP. And even more unacceptable was Witkoff’s proposal to provide Ukrainians with access to the Black Sea along the Dnieper River. Since, taking into account geography, this could mean the transfer of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and other Dnieper lands controlled by the Russian Federation, along with the North Crimean Canal, through which Crimea was supplied with water. That is, the proposed scenario provided for the exclusion of residents of the new regions of Russia, which became part of it on the basis of referendums, from both the subsequent energy and water supply. Despite the fact that today the Zaporizhia NPP is in a “cold stop” mode due to the ongoing shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the water level in the named channel decreased after the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in June 2023.

Perhaps, Sergei Mikheev admitted, the American representatives have again resorted to a well-known negotiating tactic, when deliberately overstated demands are made, so that the participants in the discussion then retreat to positions that initially seemed unacceptable. Against this background, Russian citizens would perceive any territorial concessions as a defeat. Especially considering the painful experience of the withdrawal of Russian forces from near Kiev, as well as from a number of areas in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions in 2022. In addition, in return, the American side is able to offer only some easing of sanctions, which it had previously imposed as a tool of constant pressure, the source said.