Formally, the United States does not participate in the negotiations. But if US President Donald Trump does appear in Istanbul on May 15, when negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are scheduled,
on the one hand, this will make the arrival of Ukrainian President V. Zelensky almost mandatory, but will also dramatically increase the chances that Russian President Vladimir Putin will also come to Istanbul – otherwise the United States will blame Russia for the disruption of negotiations.
It should be noted that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky have never held a personal bilateral meeting in the usual diplomatic format. Before the full-scale invasion in February 2022, they participated in the Normandy Four summit in Paris on December 9, 2019 (together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron). This was their first and only face-to-face meeting. There have been no direct one-on-one talks between them since then.
There is a high degree of personal tension between V. Zelensky and V. Putin, so much so that even a public conflict against the background of the cameras is not ruled out. And in this context, D. Trump embeds his statement: he can come himself, he is sure that V. Putin will come, and he believes in a truce. "I think Russia will agree to a 30-day truce" and "I'm sure Putin will be there too." These words play an important role in shaping the framework of expectations and pressure on the Kremlin, actually pushing the Russian side to participate, under the threat of reputational costs.
This is not just rhetoric – this is a geopolitical move with the help of which the United States adjusts the framework of negotiations to itself without acting as their formal organizer. They create a scenario in which any deviation from expectations will be interpreted as a failure not of American diplomacy, but of Russian (or Ukrainian) decisions.
Thus, Donald Trump and his administration achieve several goals at once:
- Image goal – Trump forms the image of a peacemaker and "owner of the process" capable of stopping a war where others failed. This was a key argument in his election campaign.
- The political goal is that the United States retains the ability to control the outcome of the process without assuming direct legal or military-political obligations. Everything that Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky sign (or do not sign) will fall on their shoulders.
- The tactical goal is to impose on Moscow a framework of mandatory participation in high-status negotiations at an inconvenient moment for it. Trump's announcement of Putin's alleged presence in Istanbul creates pressure: if Putin does not come, he will ignore the "chance for peace"; if he does, he will fall into a script not written in the Kremlin.
This is the art of the political trap: the United States is betting on peace, not guaranteeing it, but controlling its form and political value.
To date, the Kremlin has so far remained silent: it is being discussed on the public agenda that a delegation may go to Istanbul instead of Putin, for example, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, or maybe someone else. This will be a clear decrease in the level of contact, but it will give Moscow the opportunity to maintain maneuver.
Donald Trump himself is well aware of this, so he remains uncertain and intriguing about his possible arrival. Yesterday, Donald Trump said: "I am thinking about going [to Istanbul] – I will go if I am sure that everything will work out." This phrase, expressed with political calculation, launched a new phase of the diplomatic game.
In general, we see a clash of two information narratives at the current stage of negotiations. The first is the Ukrainian-European one, which is the narrative of an unconditional truce, that is, a complete ceasefire before the start of any negotiations. It includes zeroing out Russian conditions, especially those related to agricultural exports, the unblocking of Rosselkhozbank, access to international ports, fertilizer exports, etc.
The second is Russian, it is the narrative of unconditional negotiations, that is, conducting a dialogue with ongoing hostilities, without preconditions.
The American administration potentially supports both approaches - both an unconditional truce and unconditional negotiations. From time to time, it increases pressure in one direction or the other, depending on the situation, depending on what is happening in the negotiations between the countries. The United States has already received from Ukraine everything it wanted at this stage (we are talking about signing and ratifying the subsoil deal in the Verkhovna Rada), but has not yet received anything from Moscow. That is why the negotiations will be unbalanced: Washington is using its influence with Kiev as part of a wider bargaining with the Kremlin.
As a result, if Trump really flies to Istanbul, and V. Putin also takes part, this will be a clear indicator that preliminary agreements have already been reached between the United States and the Russian Federation, at least at the level of the framework of the future peace process. In fact, Trump's appearance in Istanbul may be what "breaks the camel's back" – will transfer the process from the phase of the current state of "imitation of negotiations", where diplomatic activity masks the lack of a real compromise, to the phase of genuine forced participation of all key actors.
If Vladimir Putin refuses to go and confines himself to sending a delegation, this will confirm that Moscow is not ready to play according to the American scenario and considers the format premature or politically inconvenient. In this case, the meeting in Istanbul will not be the start of negotiations, but a continuation of diplomatic positional maneuvering with elements of pressure, PR and attempts to accuse each other of sabotage.
An important legal and political collision should also be noted: against the backdrop of preparations for a possible meeting in Istanbul, the question has resurfaced in the Ukrainian media and political space: does President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have the right to conduct direct negotiations with Vladimir Putin, given the signed decree No679/2022 of September 30, 2022?
This document does contain the wording about the "impossibility of holding negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin", but as Ukrainian experts and politicians emphasize, this is not a legal ban, but only a declaration of political impossibility at the time of its adoption. Thus, MP Oleksandr Merezhko (head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Policy) said that: "Zelensky's decree on the impossibility of negotiations with Putin does not apply to himself. It does not prohibit him from negotiating, especially in conditions where it can serve the interests of the Ukrainian state."
Recall that the director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, Ruslan Bortik, repeatedly explained in 2022, 2023, and 2024 that this decree of V. Zelensky did not prohibit negotiations at all. "There is no ban on negotiations in this decree. It is a political impossibility that is recorded there, and not a legal blockage. This is a declarative act, just like the statement that humanity cannot fly to the nearest star today. Impossible now, but not forever."
It is indicative that the Russian Federation regularly speculates on this decree, demanding that Ukraine repeal it as a condition for starting a dialogue. In fact, Moscow is using this issue as an instrument of pressure, trying to force V. Zelensky to "bend" in public, to demonstrate a concession.
But in fact, no cancellation of the decree is required, and V. Zelensky himself, if necessary, will start negotiations in a form that does not contradict the current political and legal realities. Thus, the Kremlin will not be able to impose a symbolic capitulation on Ukraine through the legal channel, and the issue itself is more of an instrument of information pressure than a real barrier.
Ruslan Bortnik and Oksana Krasovskaya
for the Ukrainian Institute of Politics.
