ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — A Russian delegation landed in Istanbul on Thursday for the first direct peace talks with Ukraine in more than three years — but without President Vladimir Putin despite many world leaders urging Russia’s leader to attend.

Putin was not included on a list of Moscow’s negotiating team published by the Kremlin late on Wednesday, after Zelensky challenged him to turn up in person to the talks.

United States (US) President Donald Trump said he was keeping open the possibility of traveling to Turkey on Friday if there was any meaningful progress.

But the absence of Putin — as well as any top diplomats such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov or foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov — would seem to diminish the talks’ importance or any possibility of a breakthrough.  

Tens of thousands have been killed since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what is Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.

Russia now occupies about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters Moscow’s team was “ready for serious work.”

A Ukrainian official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Zelensky was en route to Ankara, where he will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and only then would decide his approach to the talks.

“The president starts his visit with Erdogan in Ankara and only then will the president decide on the next steps,” the official said.

Hundreds of journalists were gathered at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, where the talks are rumored to be taking place, AFP reporters saw.

‘His war’

Trump has been pushing for a swift end to the three-year war but has become frustrated with a lack of progress and has encouraged the two sides to open direct talks.

“You know, if something happened, I’d go on Friday,” Trump said in Qatar.

Speaking at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting in Antalya, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was “impatient” for progress and willing to consider “any mechanism” to achieve a lasting end to the war.

Rubio is due in Istanbul on Friday “for meetings with European counterparts to discuss the conflict in Ukraine and other regional issues of mutual concern,” the US State Department said.

Zelensky had spent days urging Putin to turn up after the Russian leader himself proposed direct Russia-Ukraine talks at the weekend.

Putin made the surprise call for negotiations after Kyiv and European leaders pressured him to agree to a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

“This is his war... Therefore the negotiations should be with him,” Zelensky said in one statement.