A week of diplomatic manoeuvring, ultimatums and psychological gambits has ended with a sadly predictable result: Vladimir Putin will not be coming to the negotiating table in Istanbul. Nor will he be sending a single cabinet-level negotiator. Instead the Russian delegation will be headed by former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky – the same low-level minion that Putin sent to the last round of talks in Istanbul in March-April 2022. Instead of a breakthrough, the great diplomatic effort led by Zelensky and the combined leaders of Europe have elicited nothing beyond a calculated insult from a defiant Kremlin.
This latest cycle of hope and failure in the endgame to the Ukraine war began last week with a joint visit by Sir Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s brand-new chancellor Friedrich Merz to Kyiv.
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