The Sham Talks Have Ended and Putin's War on Ukraine Continues

Putin's refusal to negotiate sincerely prolongs the Ukraine war, using sham talks to stall peace while pursuing imperial ambitions.

- JOHN DOBSON

Will he? Won't he? In the end, he didn't. Despite days of diplomatic maneuvering and psychological ploys, it became clear that President Vladimir Putin had decided not to meet up with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and possibly President Donald Trump around the negotiating table in Istanbul last Friday. Hopes of such a meeting were boosted on Monday by a surprising late-night broadcast by Putin, when he proposed direct peace talks on 16 May. According to the veteran Kremlin reporter, Andrei Kolesnikov, Putin concocted the speech himself without consulting his advisors, which led observers to conclude that he would be in Istanbul. This encouraged Zelenskyy to announce that he would be there also for a face-to-face meeting, and Trump would detour to Istanbul en route to Washington to also be at the meeting. If Putin failed to show up, said Zelenskyy, "the world would know who is the true obstacle to peace."

Days before Putin's proposal for peace talks, Britain's prime minister, Keir Starmer, accompanied by French President Macron and Germany's newly installed chancellor, Friedrich Mertz, met up in Kyiv with Zelenskyy and had issued an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy proposed a 30-day truce to start on 12 May which, if ignored by Russia, would be followed by devastating European sanctions. It now appears that Putin's late-night broadcast was a direct response to Zelenskyy's pitch.