Suddenly, Ukraine and Russia are preparing for the first direct peace talks since the spring of 2022, when negotiations that began immediately after Moscow's full invasion of Ukraine broke down.
The road to the talks expected to take place in Turkey on May 15 has been short.
On May 7, US Vice President JD Vance said that direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are a priority.
On May 10, European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in calling for a thirty-day ceasefire to begin on May 12, warning Russia of additional sanctions if it did not comply.
In a statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to turn the situation around, calling for direct talks in Turkey on May 15 and saying a ceasefire could only be achieved through negotiations.
That passed the ball to Ukraine, and Zelensky hit back: He said he would be in Turkey on May 15 and challenged Putin to show up for a face-to-face meeting, their first in more than five years.
With the deadline looming, details are scarce. Here are some of the key questions: Who will participate, what can be achieved, who will be blamed if there is no result?
Who will attend?
Zelensky is the only leader who has confirmed he will be in Turkey on May 15.
His announcement poses a challenge to Putin, who has often claimed that Zelensky is illegitimate because his five-year term would have ended about a year ago, after new presidential elections.
This provocative claim ignores the fact that Ukraine has been under martial law since the start of the full Russian occupation in February 2022, which prohibits holding elections.
The meeting with Zelensky could be seen as a recognition of his legitimacy, undermining one of the Kremlin's main false narratives about Ukraine: that the current leadership is the legacy of a Western-backed coup against the pro-Moscow government in 2014.
It would also underscore Putin's failure to achieve one of the main objectives of the 2022 invasion, the ouster of Zelensky and the installation of a pro-Russian government.
"If Putin shows up in Istanbul, that would already be a defeat for him," political analyst Alexander Friedman told Current Time.
"The very fact that he enters into negotiations with Zelensky would signal a loss for him, especially if he goes under pressure, at a summit he clearly did not plan to attend," Friedman said.
If he does not meet with Zelensky, it would open the door to accusations that he is afraid to do so.
The Ukrainian president, who has made this claim before, increased the pressure on May 13, with Reuters citing an anonymous adviser to Zelensky as saying he would meet only with Putin.
Adding to the pressure on Putin is the possibility that Trump will also appear in Turkey.
"I was thinking about flying there. I don't know where I'll be on Thursday," the US president said on May 12, before departing for a four-day visit to the Middle East.
"There's a possibility, maybe, if I think things can happen," Trump said.
What can be achieved?
Whether Putin attends or not, analysts say Russia is unlikely to make concessions or back down from its long-standing positions.
Putin suggested this when he summoned Russian journalists to the Kremlin, where he demanded direct talks in Turkey on May 15; among other things, he presented these talks as a continuation of negotiations that took place partly in Istanbul in 2022, when Russia demanded, among other things, a promise of permanent neutrality from Kiev and strict limitations on Ukraine's military forces and capabilities.
“Russia will not accept a 30-day ceasefire” and “will try to restore the old Istanbul format to negotiate tough restrictions on Ukraine’s sovereignty and its cooperation with the West. Ukraine will reject this,” wrote Russian foreign policy analyst Vladimir Frolov on the X platform.
Since the 2022 talks, Russia has increased its demands for Ukrainian territory, reiterating that for any peace deal to be implemented, Kiev and the West must accept Russian control over four regions of Ukraine that Putin unilaterally declared part of Russia in September 2022: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson.
Putin's call for direct negotiations implies that he "sees an opportunity to engage Ukraine in an 'Istanbul 2' process, very similar to the March-April 2022 talks, to pursue the same objectives, now including the newly annexed territories," wrote Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Center for Russia and Eurasia in Berlin.
"The reality is that neither Moscow nor Kiev are ready to agree on a lasting peace, as their positions are fundamentally incompatible," she added, stressing that "the American initiative to broker an agreement is doomed to fail, at least at this stage."
Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO and Trump's former special representative for Ukraine negotiations during his first term, also suggested that rapid progress is unlikely.
"This will be a long process. Putin still seems to believe he can achieve his maximalist demands," said Volker, now a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.
Who will be blamed if the talks fail?
Since Trump began his second term with an effort to broker an end to the biggest war in Europe since 1945, something he has said he could achieve in a day or two, Russia and Ukraine have tried to present themselves as constructive parties and blame the other as an obstacle to peace.
This was the backdrop to the intense activity in recent days, and their efforts will likely be redoubled if the talks in Turkey, if held, do not bring progress.
Early in his term, Trump seemed to see Ukraine primarily as the party obstructing peace, a perception that culminated in a visible clash in the Oval Office during Zelensky's visit to the White House on February 28.
The Trump administration has shown more frustration with Russia in recent weeks than ever before. On April 28, Trump said he wanted Putin to “stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,” while Vance said on May 7 that Russia was “asking too much.”
On May 11, when he urged Ukraine to accept “immediately” Putin’s proposal for talks in Turkey, Trump added: “At least they will be able to determine if a deal is possible, and if not, European leaders and the US will know where everything stands, and can act accordingly!”
This suggests that if the talks fail and the US designates one party as particularly responsible, this could have serious consequences, for example, for future aid to Ukraine, or for sanctions against Russia, which appears to be interested in improving relations with the US.
However, Stanovaya says that barring an internal upheaval in Russia or a major breakthrough on the battlefield from Ukraine, which currently seems unlikely, external pressure on Moscow, such as tougher sanctions, will not change Putin's stance.
"His goal remains to turn Ukraine into a 'friendly' state, and as long as he remains in power, he will continue to either fight or force surrender," she writes. REL
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