Donald Trump does not say an agreement on Ukraine until he encounters Vladimir Putin

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Donald Trump has said that “nothing” will happen in a peace agreement in Russia-Ukraine until he and Vladimir Putin meet, reducing the expectations of conversations between the Russian and Ukrainian ministers due to Turkey.

U.S. President’s comments threatened to push for the last peace efforts in disorder, as Russian and Ukrainian The negotiators met for the first time since 2022.

“Look, nothing will happen until Putin and I get together, okay?” Trump told journalists from Air Force before disembarking the Arab Emirates united on Thursday as part of the Middle East tour. He said that Putin “obviously … would not go” unless the President of the United States also attended.

Trump had previously said that he was open to diverting the talks in Turkey, but decided not after the Russian President would make it clear at the eleventh hour that he would not attend.

“I don’t think anything happens, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Trump said on Thursday. “But we will have to solve it because too many people die.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a cessation of fire could be reached if the technical talks between the Ukrainian negotiators and the Russians in Istanbul could agree with one. The goal was to “try to at least the first steps towards de -escalation, the first steps towards the end of the war, that is, a cessation of fire.”

Zelenskyy, who traveled to Ankara on Thursday, had been offered to meet before, but only with Putin. Upon arrival in Turkey, the Russian delegation as “later accessories” dismissed, questioning the age of its members and “if they can make decisions.”

Russian President, who last week had led to the idea of ​​resuming direct conversations with the Ukrainian side, on Wednesday confirmed that he would not attend and that his lesser known adviser, the former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, along with other officials, was placed.

Russia previously sent top -level diplomats, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in negotiations with the United States in Riyadh.

Medinsky directed the Russian delegation to talks in Istanbul with Ukraine in early 2022, which he advanced before breaking down in acronym, and Moscow has eager to present the current conversations as a “restart” of these negotiations.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations arrived in Istanbul and Ankara, without clear indication where they would meet or what their negotiating mandate was.

Zelenskyy later confirmed the day his Minister of Defense, Rustem Umerov, would lead his delegation.

He urged the western allies to increase the pressure on Russia, including applying tougher sanctions if he continued to drag his feet on a ceasefire unconditional.

German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said that Putin seemed to be “trying to direct the North -American President on the garden route” to refuse to appear in Istanbul.

“I am quite sure that the North -American President cannot be happy with this,” Pistorius told a press conference in Berlin. He insisted that there was a “B plan” if the European strategy of threatening more sanctions failed, but said that “we cannot speak publicly about Plan B and C before it became clear what happened to Plan A”.

The White House said early this week that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, would travel to Turkey to participate in the conversations.

Laura Pitel additional reports in Berlin