Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a trip to Turkey aimed at revitalizing peace talks with Russia.
“Tomorrow - meetings in Turkey. We are preparing to ramp up negotiations, and we have developed solutions that we will propose to partners. Bringing the war to an end by all possible means is Ukraine’s top priority. We are also working to resume exchanges and bring prisoners home,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Soon after, an informed source in Turkey told Reuters that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Turkey on November 19 and take part in planned talks with Zelensky. AFP, citing a Ukrainian source, reported that the Ukrainian president will meet in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia had received “no information from Kyiv.” He added there would be no Russian representatives in Turkey on the days Zelensky is there.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Turkey has offered itself as a mediator between Kyiv and Moscow. Russian and Ukrainian delegations have held several rounds of talks in Istanbul since May, during which a prisoner exchange was agreed, but the meetings yielded no progress toward a ceasefire.
The most recent exchange took place in early October, when Moscow and Kyiv swapped 185 people each.
Ukraine says Russia has repeatedly shown an unwillingness to stop the war by making unacceptable demands, including ceding additional territory and effectively forcing Kyiv’s capitulation to Moscow.
Zelensky has been touring Europe to shore up support for Ukraine amid Russian strikes on the country’s power grid and a corruption scandal at home.
On November 18, he is set to meet Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. A day earlier, the Ukrainian leader signed an agreement with France that provides for Kyiv to acquire up to 100 fighter jets and other equipment, including drones.
On November 11, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsya said peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow were suspended due to a lack of progress. “Under a dictatorship (in Russia), it is impossible to have productive discussions with negotiating teams representing the dictator. They have a very rigid mandate, and they must defend the position they were ordered to,” Kyslytsya said at the time.
At the same time, on November 16 Kyiv said indirect talks on prisoner exchanges with Russia had resumed. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Secretary Rustem Umerov said the discussions concern resuming exchanges under the “Istanbul agreements.” Turkey and the UAE acted as intermediaries. “Technical consultations will be held in the near future. They should formalize all procedural and organizational points,” the NSDC chief said.
