Will Putin be in Turkey for peace talks? The Kremlin list does not indicate.

On Wednesday, Russia released a list of officials who will attend peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey. But an important person was missing: President Vladimir V. Putin.

The absence on the list of the Russian leader, who ordered the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to start the war, was a strong indication that Mr Putin would not come with President Volodymyr Zensky from Ukraine, who one murderer. The Kremlin said that Mr Putin himself had signed the delegation.

President Trump, who had started to insist on peace talks before taking back the White House, had said he would consider participating in the meeting in Turkey.

“I thought about really flying there,” Mr. Trump said reporters during a press conference of the White House on Monday.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump, who is on a tour of three countries through the Middle East, indicated that he too would skip the conversations and instead visit the United Arab Emirates as planned. But he said that State Secretary Marco Rubio would be present.

“Tomorrow we will all be booked, you understand that,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re going to the VAE tomorrow. So we have a very complete situation. Now that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it to save a lot of lives and come back. But yes, I thought about it.”

Mr. Putin added Mr Trump: “I don’t know he would be there if I wasn’t there. We’re going to find out. Marco is going and Marco has been very effective.” Together with Mr. Rubio was expected to have the special envoys of Mr. Trump Steven Witkoff and Keith Kellogg would travel to Turkey.

In A post on social media On Wednesday, Mr Zensky said that he “waited to see who will come from Russia” before he decided what steps Ukraine should take with regard to the peace talks. He also insisted on the “strongest” Western sanctions against Russia if Mr Putin rejected the meeting.

The Kremlin said that the Russian delegation would be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hard assistant for Mr Putin. It would also be vice minister of Defense Alexander Fomin, who was part of the Russian delegation in conversations between Moscow and Kiev in the weeks after the 2022 invasion; and other high military and intelligence officials.

The effort could not be higher for both parties in the largest land war in Europe since the Second World War.

After more than 15 months of war, Russian still has the initiative and performs dozens of attacks at the front in the east of Ukraine every day. But his soldiers and brigades have been exhaustedand Moscow is struggling to replace Destroyed equipmentSay analysts.

Ukrainian armed forces, who made a daring invasion of the Russian Kursk region in August 2024, have since been almost completely removed from there. They have also lost territory in the east of their country. While Mr. Trump has insisted on peace talks, Kyiv has emphasized that it needs security guarantees from the United States. Ukraine even a deal signed Last month that America gives part of the future income from its reserves of rare earth minerals. But the final deal contained no explicit guarantees for future American security aid.

As the pressure for peace has grown, the White House said in March that Ukraine and Russia had agreed Stop fighting in the Black Sea And to work on details for stopping strikes at energy facilities. Later that month, after meetings were held in Saudi Aarabia, Ukraine said it would support a proposal for Trump administration for A 30-day ceasefire. That gave a new momentum to the weighing of negotiations, which faltered afterwards A public confrontation in the White House Between Mr. Zensky and Mr. Trump.

Then, in April, Mr Putin explained a “Easter trucks‘ broke his own Easter Armistice.

After Mr. Trump expressed frustration about Russia’s refusal to stop the war, Mr Putin ordered A three-day ceasefire to start on May 8, to the May 9 Celebration of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Mr. Zensky described that promise as a ‘manipulation. “

Great -Britain and France, that had promised to collect a ‘Coalition of the willingness‘To guarantee a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, a coalition of European allies who gave Russia led A deadline This month to agree with a 30-day ceasefire or be confronted with new sanctions.

In his social media post on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president said that he was “ready for any format of negotiations” with Russia in Turkey.

“Russia only extends the war and the murders,” the Lord Zensky added. “I want to thank every country, every leader who is now busy on Russia, so that the shelling finally stops.”

Cicely Wedgeworth has contributed reporting.