(This article was prepared within the framework of KHAR Center’s research project “Security and State Architecture”)
In this article, KHAR Center analyzes the never-ending storm of “peace negotiations” concerning the Russia–Ukraine war, their causes, and the positions of the conflict’s direct and indirect parties.
Introduction
U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims about ending the Ukraine war have reached a deadlock—both because of his constantly shifting rhetoric, the character of Putin’s authoritarianism, and the absence of concrete proposals from the forces that claim to be interested in resolving the problem.
Paradoxically, the more the topic of peace negotiations intensifies, the harsher the conflict becomes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that they expect stronger U.S. support. In mid-August, Trump, who ceremonially welcomed Putin in Alaska and then parted ways without any results (at least for the public), placing the responsibility for the negotiations on President Zelensky, announced at the beginning of September that he might impose sanctions on Russia (FT, September 2025).
Adding to this picture is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement, made upon returning from China earlier this month, that Putin was not ready for a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky; Putin’s call for the Ukrainian president to come to Moscow for such a meeting, which Zelensky firmly rejected; and Kremlin spokesperson Peskov’s reference to Moscow’s classic manipulation of the “Istanbul negotiations” when speaking of the talks’ basis. Taken together, all this makes the resolution of the knot in the near future seem unrealistic.
Key Questions of the Analysis
Do the “peace negotiations” in the Russia–Ukraine war, which gained momentum at the beginning of 2025 and entered a new phase with the Trump–Putin meeting in August, have any prospects? What are the positions of the direct parties to the conflict and the main players? Who is ready to make what concessions, and are these concessions sufficient to at least freeze the conflict? What is the biggest risk to the negotiations?
Sources Used in the Analysis
This analysis draws on internet resources, news published in reliable media outlets, information from diplomatic sources in Kyiv, and KHAR Center’s exclusive interview with Naryman Dzhelialov, Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkiye.
Who Wants What?
The “peace process” launched by U.S. President Donald Trump at the beginning of 2025, which worked more in Russia’s favor, has once again ended in fiasco. But the process is not over yet. This is the most complicated and risky part of the issue—negotiations continuing in a context of contradictions, uncertainties, and unhealthy foundations, with no light visible at the end. The longer these talks drag on, the more the legitimacy Trump has conferred strengthens Putin’s appetite for conquest and demands; Russia increases its air attacks on Ukraine, while Ukraine’s war potential erodes day by day.
Amidst all this noise and negotiation frenzy, it still remains unclear what exactly each side currently wants, what they are prepared for, or what they are offering. No one knows what is meant when someone says “peace.”
Ukraine’s Main Condition — Peace, But a Just One…
**“First is the issue of territorial integrity. We will not give away even a piece of our land. This is not just a matter concerning Ukraine, but one that concerns the international system. If today Russia gains territory from us—whether much or little—the international system will be disrupted. It will create a tendency for any powerful state to use weapons to seize land it wants. If we agree to this, tomorrow China will take Taiwan, Israel will go further, and other things will happen in the Balkans. Maybe not immediately, but the tendency will be created. The war in Palestine has lasted for decades precisely because borders were not drawn properly. We cannot allow this.
Second principle is the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Ukraine—from Crimea, from the east, from everywhere. They must take both their living and their dead. Not even their graves should remain. Because even these graves will become a pretext for future occupation—this is Russia’s occupation symbolism. For example, there are Turkish cemeteries in Akyar and other parts of Ukraine, but the Turks do not turn this into a symbol of occupation. The graves are respected, cared for, visited—that’s all. But Russia is not like that. If even a single Russian grave remains anywhere in Donetsk, sooner or later they will return and say, ‘Our blood was spilled here, this place is ours.’ For this reason, not even the dead Russian soldiers should remain on Ukrainian soil.
The third principle is real security guarantees. In our view, the most realistic mechanism is NATO membership. For this reason, we included this in our Constitution several years ago. NATO membership is our strategic goal and the most serious security guarantee against Russian occupation. The Russians know this, which is why they demand our non-membership in NATO as a condition. But this is not their right. We will definitely continue toward NATO. Perhaps a few years ago no one took the NATO mechanism seriously, because there was no need. But now everyone understands that a state cannot respond to aggression alone. The wars in Georgia and Ukraine have shown this concretely. Especially in Georgia’s war, it became clear that if you are not inside a security system, you are doomed to defeat. No one supported Georgia, and Russia occupied it in five days. No one supported Ukraine in 2014, no one provided weapons, but after 2022 Ukraine, with its own determination, managed to gain support—and that is why it has continued fighting into the fourth year. But for this to continue, security guarantees are essential.
The fourth principle is that Russia must definitely compensate us for the damage it has inflicted. This is essential. Because rebuilding Ukraine is very important for us. Europe is ready to help us. But the aggressor state must bear responsibility. We have also proposed a mechanism for this—Russia’s frozen assets in Europe should be given to us. Right now those assets are frozen, and a mechanism must be found to transfer them to Ukraine.
The fifth principle is the punishment of war crimes. Yes, this is war; people die, people kill. But even war has its own laws. War crimes must not go unpunished. This also applies to the Ukrainian side. We openly say this and punish those who commit war crimes. But in Russia not a single such case exists. In this war, responsibility lies with everyone—from the ordinary soldier who commits crimes to the greatest criminal—Putin himself. If not today, then tomorrow Putin must be tried in an international tribunal. Even if Putin dies, flees, hides—Russia as a state must bear responsibility. To prevent attempts at such crimes in the future, punishment is essential. Otherwise, new wars and new occupation plans symbolized as “heroism” in Russia will be inevitable.”**
To What Concessions Is Kyiv Ready for the Continuation of Negotiations?
It is clear that despite Kyiv’s rightful position, acceptance of these conditions does not look realistic. In this situation, how far is Ukraine ready to retreat from its demands?
Naryman Dzhelialov says that for peace to be just, these principles must be preserved, and additionally, other security guarantees must be provided.
Another source who agreed to speak with KHAR from Ukraine said that Kyiv, while not accepting in principle the violation of territorial integrity, is open to discussions on a phased solution—similar to how the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states was not accepted in principle, or how the Karabakh conflict was frozen. In this framework, Ukraine is ready to accept the freezing of the conflict along the current frontline in order to ensure the continuity of negotiations. This could be interpreted as a retreat from Kyiv’s previous position—because earlier Ukraine had put forward as a precondition the freezing of the frontline under conditions as of 2022, whereas now it seems prepared to accept the existing line of contact.
Although Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkiye does not directly confirm this, he says that Russia is not ready to accept any of these: “Russia tells us to withdraw even from the territories we currently control, that this region should belong entirely to them.”
Russia’s Boundless Demands
Naryman Dzhelialov states that Russia’s demands are boundless and emphasizes that from the very beginning of the war, although presented in different forms, Putin’s real intention has been to control Ukraine as a whole and keep it within his sphere of influence: “For this reason, he tries to prolong the war under various pretexts.”
The concrete demands voiced by Russia in the current negotiations are constantly changing. The numerous demands from the beginning of the war—including “denazification” and “demilitarization”—have undergone various modifications over 3.5 years. At the Istanbul negotiations in June this year, Moscow demanded that the Ukrainian army withdraw from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson; that the annexation of Crimea be accepted; that Ukraine provide guarantees it would not join NATO and would remain neutral; that it reduce its army; that Russian be granted official status; that Western military support to Kyiv be completely halted; and that elections be held within 100 days (KHAR Center, June 2025a).
No official statement was made regarding how Putin listed his demands at the Alaska meeting, but Trump gave hints on two of them, saying that Kyiv should forget about Crimea and NATO membership. Ukrainian President Zelensky, after his meeting with Trump, revealed another demand—that Putin had made Ukraine’s complete withdrawal from the Donbas region a condition for stopping the war, but that they would not accept it (AP, August 2025). Western media also reported that Putin was demanding not only the occupied territories but also Ukraine’s withdrawal from critical points in Donetsk oblast such as Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, acceptance of the surrender of Donetsk and Luhansk, and in return, offering the freezing of the frontline in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia (The Guardian, August 2025).
Ambassador Naryman Dzhelialov also confirms that Putin put forward this demand, explaining: “Russia demands that the line of contact be formed in such a way as to encompass all of southeastern Ukraine. Because many people may not even realize it, but in fact, there is not a big difference between the frontline of 2022 and that of 2025 that could justify Russia’s killing of more than a million soldiers and spending billions of dollars. From 2014 to 2022, Russia occupied 26–27 percent of Ukrainian territory. During the Great War—that is, in the last 3.5 years—it has occupied only 1 percent more. For this reason, Russia uses peace negotiations as a pretext to seize more land. This, of course, is impossible.”
Brief note: How much Ukrainian territory is under occupation?
From the annexation of Crimea in 2014 until February 2022, the share of Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation—rising and falling at different times—stood at 7 percent. Just one month after the start of the full-scale war in 2022, the area occupied by Russia rose to 27 percent. However, after April 8 Russia was forced to withdraw from northern Ukraine and to pull out from 40 percent of the territory it had occupied overall. (CNN, 2022)
After Ukraine’s successful operation in the Kharkiv direction in September 2022 and its counteroffensives in the Kherson–Zaporizhzhia direction, the percentage of territory occupied by Russia fell from 27 to 18. (Belfer, 2023)
From 2022 to 2025, Russia seized only 1 percent more land. Currently this figure is 19 percent. (Belfer, January 2025)
Although the line of contact between the two countries changes frequently, at present nearly one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory (114.5 square kilometers) is under occupation. The active frontline stretching across Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson is nearly 1,000 kilometers long. Nearly 88 percent of the Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and Donetsk—i.e., Luhansk almost entirely and about three-quarters of Donetsk—is under occupation. At the same time, Russia holds nearly three-quarters of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as well as some small localities in Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk. Ukraine continues to defend a 6,600-square-kilometer area in Donbas. This area has been under Ukraine’s control since 2014 and includes important towns that are part of the “fortress belt” of great importance for the country’s defense, such as Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Oleksiyevo-Druzhkivka, and Kostyantynivka. (Al Jazeera, August 2025)
Two other demands that Putin put forward at the meeting with Trump were granting the Russian language state status in Ukraine and allowing the Russian Orthodox Church to operate independently (Reuters, August 2025).
Turkiye’s ambassador to Ukraine says these conditions directly concern Ukraine’s independence: “The Russian language previously had state-language status in Ukraine, but it was abolished precisely as a result of Russia’s aggressive policy. As for the Church, everyone knows that Russia uses the Church for its invasive activities in Ukraine. When I was in prison, I read a book titled ‘History of the KGB,’ and even they themselves write about how, at different times in history, they used the Church and priests. For this reason, in order to prevent these activities of the Russian Church, Ukraine put forward the condition that they either renounce the Moscow Patriarchate or be shut down. They did not accept it. Russian propaganda presents this as pressure on Christians, but this is very ridiculous. Ukraine is a country where the majority of the people are Christian. Therefore, it is ridiculous to regard this as pressure on religion. We can speak not of pressure on religion, but of pressure on organizations that carry out destructive activities under the name of religion. Because this is a direct threat to Ukraine’s independence.”
On September 5, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that if the level of direct talks is elevated, the process should continue in the 2022 Istanbul format. Peskov claimed that during the 2022 talks a draft agreement had initially been signed and that it included all security guarantees (Hurriyet, September 2025).
Ambassador Naryman Dzhelialov, however, says this is Moscow’s traditional propaganda ploy and is largely based on falsehoods: “No guarantees were given to Ukraine in those talks, there was not even a proposal. This was an enormous responsibility, and nobody wanted to take on that responsibility. Even today nobody wants to take it on. Nobody is ready for it. The countries closest to being able to provide security guarantees could be France and the United Kingdom, but even they say they can only send their troops here after peace. And when will that be? Nobody knows. To this day, no country or organization, large or small, has said to Ukraine, ‘If you do this, we will give you these guarantees.’ Everyone is waiting.”
Moscow has repeatedly declared that Kyiv broke the 2022 agreement under British pressure. But Naryman Dzhelialov emphasizes that Russia is manipulating the issue: “The Russians present it as if there was an agreement there, a document had been signed, and that we violated it. There was no agreement—there were proposals. It was the first month of the war, and everyone was in a state of shock and stress. Maybe some people in Ukraine could have thought that this could be a solution to the problem, but most Ukrainians would not have accepted it. Because in those days, Ukrainians were lining up in front of military draft offices and government buildings, demanding weapons so they could fight. At the beginning of the war, nobody was on our side. Everyone was waiting to see what the Ukrainians would do. And everyone saw that the Ukrainians did not allow Russia to ‘take Kyiv in three days.’ The Russians’ plans were foiled. Only after that did support begin. In these negotiations, Ukraine took into account not what someone said, but the determination and position of the Ukrainian people. Our people were ready to fight, and our president took that into account.”
A brief chronology of the peace process and the Alaska fiasco
Perhaps the most ambitious of U.S. President Donald Trump’s global leadership claims was to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Before being elected president of the United States, he asserted that he would end the war immediately upon coming to power; he made the Biden administration, Europe, and Ukraine targets of sharp criticism; and he shocked the world by sending warm messages to Putin one after another. (AP News, 2024)
The early part of this year passed with the U.S. president’s constantly changing rhetoric around this issue. After the start of the war in Ukraine, Trump for the first time conducted the highest-level talks with Russia, publicly tried to force Ukrainian President Zelensky to accept Moscow’s terms, belittled him, and halted military aid to Ukraine. But none of this produced any result—the process did not move from its place (KHAR Center, June 2025b).
At the end of April, the United States put forward a proposal that envisaged recognizing Crimea as Russian territory, de facto accepting the occupation of Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk, Ukraine’s non-accession to NATO, the lifting of sanctions against Russia, and Kyiv’s receipt of a security guarantee with unknown details—but both sides rejected it.
In May, repeating his thesis that Kyiv had violated the 2022 Istanbul agreement, Putin proposed holding talks again in Turkiye. Zelensky responded to this by saying, “I will personally wait for Putin in Istanbul,” and he kept his word; however, neither Putin nor Trump went to Istanbul. During the inter-delegation talks in Istanbul, there was no progress due to Russia’s position (KHAR Center, June 2025c).
On July 14, Trump gave Russia a deadline, saying that if he did not end the war within 50 days, he would toughen sanctions and impose a 100 percent customs duty on countries that buy Russian oil; he later announced he was shortening this deadline by 10–12 days (CBS News, July 2025), (Politico, July 2025).
Two days before the deadline expired, Trump’s special envoy Witkoff announced that they had held a very productive meeting with Putin and that there had been major progress (Politico, August 2025). On August 8—the day the ultimatum expired—Trump announced not sanctions against Russia, but that he would meet Putin in Alaska on August 15 (The Economist, August 2025).
On August 15, the meeting watched by the whole world took place—Trump greeted Putin on a red carpet, seated him in his car, patted him on the back—but nothing was announced to the public as a result of the meeting. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s trip to Alaska wearing a T-shirt reading “USSR,” and the serving of “Kyiv cutlet” to the Russian delegation on the plane, were discussed more than the Russia–Ukraine war itself and showed how unseriously Moscow approached the matter (The Guardian, August 2025).
Nevertheless, two days after meeting with Putin, Trump once again shifted all responsibility onto Ukrainian President Zelensky and, switching from the previous “ceasefire talks” to the rhetoric of “peace talks,” effectively repeated Putin’s demands—Ukraine must reconcile itself to the annexation of Crimea, give up its territories, and accept non-membership in NATO (Al Jazeera, August 2025). Two days later, he met with Zelensky and conveyed Putin’s demands.
On September 7, Russia launched the largest air attack since the beginning of the war, with 805 drones and 13 ballistic missiles. After this attack—in which five people were killed, including a 2-year-old, 44 were injured, and the building of Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers was hit—Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yuliya Sydorenko said this was a mockery of Trump’s peace efforts. Similar statements came from Ukraine’s European allies (AP, September 8, 2025). Trump, as noted at the beginning of this article, again repeated that sanctions could be imposed on Russia.
Trump’s deep zigzags
These deep zigzags in the U.S. president’s rhetoric continue to be the most risky and dangerous factor in the negotiation process. Undoubtedly, Trump wants this war to end—he does not need a headache of this magnitude in the world. On this issue, the U.S. president behaves like a pragmatic businessman. He is in a hurry and tries to end the war, but he does not seek justice. Therefore, at the beginning of the process he took the shortcut position of “Russia is strong, Ukraine will accept defeat, it has no cards to play.” Ambassador Naryman Dzhelialov says that not only Trump but also countries like China and Brazil hold this position: “But we did not accept this and will not accept it. Our president openly objected to it in the White House, taking all the risks upon himself in front of the whole world.”
According to Naryman Dzhelialov, after this behavior by Ukraine’s leader Zelensky, there was a change in the rhetoric of the U.S. administration: “In addition, with the spider-web operation we demonstrated our warfighting capability; with drones we effectively paralyzed the movement of Russia’s ships in the Black Sea—they had to flee and hide. On the other hand, when a resolution on Ukraine was brought to the UN earlier this year, the United States opposed it. Nevertheless, we succeeded in getting that resolution adopted. This was a very significant event and a very serious turning point.”
Despite all the zigzags and uncertainties, Ambassador Celal also draws attention to the positive aspects of Trump’s position: “Ukraine has been at war with Russia for years; tens of thousands of people have died; the war has touched everyone’s lives. After three years, someone said, ‘Hold on, let’s see, there must be negotiations.’ There had been proposals in this direction before, but in fact there had been no initiative in the recent period. Trump came out and, by the shortest route, said ‘make peace.’ Regardless of the form, this was very important. A year ago, no one even spoke of negotiations, whereas now it has become the number-one topic of discussion in the world. Even if there is no progress, the issue is on the agenda and countries are now obliged to clarify their positions.”
Europe’s Ukraine Test
Europe’s position on Ukraine—its hesitations, contradictions, indecisions, and double standards—is, in fact, a separate subject worthy of research.
To summarize briefly: by prioritizing only political issues (such as Tymoshenko’s imprisonment) in its relations with Ukraine prior to 2013, ignoring economic and social problems, and—most importantly—by failing to take the Russian risk seriously, the European Union paved the way for the occupation first of Crimea in 2014, and later of large parts of Donetsk and Luhansk (Evans, May 2025).
European countries did not learn from this either—although symbolic sanctions were announced against Russia, they were largely not enforced; on the contrary, energy imports from Russia increased without due regard for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Germany, in particular, played a leading role both in determining and in undermining sanctions against Russia during this period. While resisting sanctions within the EU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opted for dialogue with Russia. Between 2014 and 2021, Germany became the country that most expanded energy trade with Russia via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline (Pelayo, 2022). Another major European power—France—also chose not to disrupt its relations with Russia at this stage. Despite the occupation of Ukrainian territories and the declared sanctions, France continued its “pragmatism” in economic relations with Russia and maintained trade volumes (Dziubinska, 2022). As recently as 2019—just three years before the full-scale war—French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the importance of continuing strategic dialogue with Russia (The Moscow Times, 2019). The Minsk talks and the “Normandy Four” format, in which France and Germany played key roles as a framework for resolving the Russia–Ukraine problem, in practice amounted to turning a blind eye to the occupation of Crimea and pushing Ukraine toward concessions (Regenbrecht, 2025).
The large-scale war that began in 2022 also exposed other problems within Europe—it became a kind of litmus test. True, after this war Europe’s stance on Russia underwent radical change. In particular, the United Kingdom, various EU member states, and the Union as a whole imposed very serious sanctions on Russia and adopted practical decisions to reduce the energy dependence that had continued since 2014. In addition, large-scale steps were taken to provide Ukraine with weapons support and humanitarian aid.
However, first, the issue of reducing energy dependence caused very deep rifts within the Union—Hungary and Slovakia in particular increased their energy dependence on Russia even further, undermining unity and moving closer to Moscow, thereby creating de facto division within the EU (KHAR Center, July 2025). On the other hand, the hesitations and delays of European countries—chiefly Germany and France—regarding the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine affected the course of the war (Atlantic Council, 2023).
Since the beginning of this year, Trump’s attempts in Ukraine-related talks to sideline Kyiv—and especially Europe—have somewhat changed the situation. New security paradigms began to be discussed within Europe. A day after the Alaska meeting between the presidents of the United States and Russia, the Weimar group (France, Germany, Poland) convened in an expanded Weimar+ format that included Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission. The group issued a joint statement emphasizing the importance of providing strong security guarantees to Ukraine. The statement included provisions that a “Coalition of the Willing” was ready to play an active role and that no restrictions should be placed on the Ukrainian Armed Forces or on cooperation with third countries. European countries also declared that they would not close off Ukraine’s path to NATO membership (Reuters, August 2025).
The “Coalition of the Willing” held its first meeting on September 4 in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron stated that 26 out of 35 countries in the coalition were ready to provide military support to Ukraine. The United States did not officially join the coalition, but Trump’s envoy Witkoff met both with coalition members and with Ukrainian President Zelensky (AP News, September 2025).
Despite all its internal problems, Naryman Dzhelialov, Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkiye, emphasizes that Europe currently represents the position closest to Ukraine’s: “Naturally, we are very grateful to Europe; they have helped us a great deal, and Ukrainians will always be grateful to them for this. Of course, some European countries continue cooperation with Russia directly, while others do so indirectly through their companies, and this creates an unfortunate precedent. Our president has repeatedly told our European allies this quite openly. Nevertheless, it is still Europe that demonstrates the position closest to ours.”
According to Naryman Dzhelialov, there have been cardinal changes in how the EU’s locomotive countries, Germany and France, view the Ukraine issue: “The Germany and France of 2014–2022 are very different from what they are now. The most important factor here is Ukraine. Ukraine’s demonstration of its own strength has influenced the positions of all countries. In a sense, history is repeating itself. In 1938, when Germany attacked Czechoslovakia, everyone said ‘let’s give it up and be done with it,’ thinking Hitler would be satisfied with that. But we all know what happened next. When Crimea was occupied and when Russia occupied eastern Ukraine in 2014, similar positions emerged. But in 2022 everyone saw that it was impossible to stop Russia with that. At the same time, Trump’s leaving them to fend for themselves has had a serious impact. European countries have understood the importance of being ready to support one another.”
According to the ambassador, within the EU the countries that support Ukraine unconditionally are the Baltic states, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Poland: “Domestic political struggles in Poland at times affect this process as well, but the overall policy is one of support. These countries understand better what Russian occupation and oppression mean. In fact, our neighbor Hungary should also understand this better—as a country that resisted Soviet occupation in Europe and paid a price. But the Orbán government turns a blind eye to this. Of course, we understand—every country has its own interests. In Hungary, of course, the issue is not the state, but Orbán. On the other hand, Hungary’s concerns about Ukraine are understandable as well. Ukraine is a very large state with great potential and ambition. Today we may not be their competitor, but tomorrow we could be. Ukrainians are very proactive people, and accepting such a state into EU membership worries everyone. On the other hand, we must not forget the Russia factor in Europe. Russia is active in every country—in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe, and in Turkiye as well. It even has mechanisms to influence elections in Europe. Of course, we respect that all countries think about their own interests. But no one should forget that this is not a Ukraine issue; first and foremost it is a European issue, a global issue. If the existing international system is disrupted, the outcome will be dangerous for everyone.”
Turkiye’s Balancing Act
One of the actors playing an active role in the talks between Russia and Ukraine is Turkiye. Since 2014, Turkiye has opposed the occupation of Ukrainian territory. As one of the first countries not to recognize the annexation of Crimea, Turkiye has, for ten years, played a serious role at the UN in the preparation and adoption of resolutions formalizing the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and Russia’s position as an occupier. At the same time, since 2022, Ankara has made efforts to host peace talks and has achieved this to a certain extent. However, noticeable zigzags can also be observed in Ankara’s stance.
Ankara officially claims to be pursuing a policy of balance. This balance is implemented in a distinct “Turkish way”: while not recognizing the annexation of Crimea, economic ties with Russia have continued on an upward trajectory since 2014. Turkiye sells Ukraine Bayraktar drones—which played a critical role especially in the early days of the war—and other arms and ammunition, is building a Bayraktar factory in Ukraine, and supports Ukraine’s NATO membership; yet at the same time it maintains strategic partnership with Russia on large projects such as the purchase of S-400 air defense systems, construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, and TurkStream (Coşkun, Gabiev, Pierini, Siccardi and Umarov, 2024).
This balancing policy—advancing on a tightrope and sometimes manifesting as “one step forward, two steps back”—has continued since the outbreak of the large-scale war in 2022. Turkiye officially opposed Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories, declared its straits closed to warships in accordance with the Montreux Convention, and supported all decisions on international platforms recognizing Russia as the occupier—in other words, symbolically and diplomatically it stood with Kyiv and the Western bloc. Yet at the same time it kept its airspace open to Russian aircraft and did not join any sanctions against Russia—in practice, lending Moscow a hand (Cook, 2022).
On the other hand, imbalances in the visual-propaganda dimension at times appear in Russia’s favor. Turkish media is largely under the influence of Russian propaganda. Including state broadcasters, the balance in Turkish media on this issue is clearly in Russia’s favor. This is strongly influenced by anti-Western sentiment in Turkiye, the rise of Eurasianism in recent years, and the Turkish government’s warm relations with Russia (KHAR Center, July 2025).
At the same time, while Ankara seeks to keep the level of representation with Russia at the highest, its preference for symbolic steps regarding political support to Ukraine also does not go unnoticed. One of the most striking examples was at the beginning of September—Turkiye attended the “Coalition of the Willing” meeting on support for Ukraine only symbolically, through the online participation of Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, while sending the highest-level and a large delegation—headed by the president—to the Shanghai Cooperation Summit in Beijing (DHA, September 2025). In 2024 as well, Turkiye opted for symbolic participation in both the Crimea Platform leaders’ summit and the parliamentary summit—the first with a video message from President Erdoğan, the second via the deputy speaker Bekir Bozdağ instead of the speaker of the Grand National Assembly (İletişim Başkanlığı, 2024; QHA, 2024). Yet only a month before the Crimea Platform Parliamentary Summit, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly Numan Kurtulmuş paid an official visit to Russia and met with both President Putin and Federation Council Speaker Matviyenko (Turkiyetoday, 2024).
Despite all this, Ukraine tries to avoid taking a critical stance in relations with Ankara. In an exclusive interview with KHAR Center, Ambassador Naryman Dzhelialov says that Turkiye’s position since 2014 on preserving Ukraine’s territorial integrity is extremely important and a matter of principle for Kyiv: “Undoubtedly, this is an important issue for Turkiye as well, because accepting the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity would create a very bad precedent. Turkiye is aware of this and acts diplomatically accordingly. At the same time, Turkiye’s statements regarding the peace talks are also very important. In particular, the emphasis on a ‘just peace’ in the statements of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is very important for us. Another very important point is President Erdoğan’s recent message to the Crimea Platform: ‘Crimea must return to Ukraine.’”
Naryman Dzhelialov does not take an overly painful view of Turkiye’s close relations with Russia—which have prompted criticism in both Ukrainian society and the West: “First of all, every country has its own interests, and we view Turkiye’s economic ties with Russia with understanding. Of course, Turkiye has leverage over Russia. Russia is dependent on Turkiye—both declaratively and practically. But we should keep in mind that if Ankara uses these leverage mechanisms, it would practically cross out its ‘peace’ mission. From this perspective, we must decide: should Turkiye be a bridge, or should it stand entirely with us and oppose Russia? At present, it is important for us that Turkiye play the role of a bridge.”
Is a Putin–Zelensky Meeting Possible?
What we have outlined above—that is, the positions of the parties—does not allow any forecast as to when and how the process will end. In early September, after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in China, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that Putin was not yet ready for a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky (DW, September 2025). Later it was reported that Putin invited Zelensky to Moscow for a face-to-face meeting, but the Ukrainian leader categorically rejected this (Reuters, September 2025).
Ukraine’s ambassador in Ankara, Naryman Dzhelialov, says a Zelensky–Putin meeting depends on the circumstances: “Naturally, Putin does not want this. Because he sees no need for it. He wants to continue the war. But even if he doesn’t want it, if the U.S. exerts pressure, the meeting can take place. Putin would never go to America. Trump pressured him, he got on the plane and went. Of course, Trump welcomed him to win his favor, made gestures. But that didn’t change anything. Putin went to America, talked, and returned to continue bombing Ukraine. Because this is who Putin is—the more room you give him, the more he uses it. The more you pressure and constrain him, the more he will step back. In this sense, the process depends on U.S. pressure. Zelensky, for his part, is ready to meet. Of course, not in Moscow, but somewhere else—yet he is ready.”
So what lies behind Zelensky’s readiness—does he truly believe that such a meeting will end the war, or is he trying to show the world, especially Trump, that Putin does not want negotiations and that even if a meeting were held and a middle ground proposed, he would not accept it?
The Ukrainian diplomat says Zelensky sincerely wants the war to end: “But that does not mean Zelensky will accept any peace that is unjust. Zelensky is a leader who works closely with public opinion and takes the people’s position seriously. According to recent polls, most Ukrainians want peace. But at the same time, most Ukrainians consider territorial concessions impossible. This means that even if, theoretically, Ukraine were forced into some unjust peace, the Ukrainian people would not accept it. Zelensky knows this and therefore will not sign any document that the people do not accept.”
The Crimea Knot
A Crimean Tatar by origin, Naryman Dzhelialov served as deputy chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People before his ambassadorial appointment and was imprisoned in Russia for three years for opposing the occupation. He believes that reconciling with the annexation of Crimea, as Trump wants, would be a tragedy for Ukraine: “If Ukraine gives up Crimea, it will lose symbolically. Practically, Russia will further strengthen itself in Crimea, which it uses as a military staging ground, and this will be a permanent threat to Ukraine. On the other hand, in that case access to the Black Sea would be only through Odesa and Mykolaiv, which means being under a constant Russian threat. Finally, if such a decision is made, Ukraine will have betrayed its own citizens. Today, regardless of whether they support us or not, everyone in the world respects Ukraine. But if it gives up Crimea, it may lose that respect. Ukraine’s decision-makers are aware of this. When I was still a young journalist, I wrote in the newspaper Avdet published in Crimea: ‘Crimea is the key to Ukraine’s independence. In their first strike, the Russians will try to break this lock.’ That is exactly what happened. From this perspective, as long as Crimea remains in Russia, Ukraine will never be able to consider itself safe. Even if we give Crimea to Russia as Trump proposes and even if Russia withdraws from other territories, nothing will end with that. In the future, the Russians will return, adding new symbols of occupation to their past historical narratives. In this sense, giving up Crimea is unacceptable.”
Naryman Dzhelialov says that the most correct solution for both Ukraine and the world is a just peace: “Otherwise, this problem will not end; it will be passed down to future generations and continue for years. Nor will it stop there—Russia will again, and even more forcefully, demand new territories from Ukraine, return to the Caucasus, return to Syria. Worse yet, this precedent will cause new hotbeds of war to emerge around the world.”
CONCLUSION
The facts listed in the analysis and the ideas expressed in Ambassador Naryman Dzhelialov’s interview show that, at least in the near term, there will be no fundamental changes in the negotiations over the Russia–Ukraine war, or in the course of the war in general. Summarizing the positions of the parties to the conflict and of the mediators:
- Ukraine demands a legal and just solution to the problem and puts forward concrete proposals, but it lacks the capacity to implement these proposals on its own.
- Russia puts forward constantly changing, escalating, and unacceptable demands and seeks to achieve them by increasing attacks on Ukraine.
- Europe supports Ukraine, but this support is not sufficient for Kyiv to prevail either at the negotiating table or along the line of contact. Moreover, Europe’s internal problems also impede this process.
- Turkiye, against the backdrop of warm relations and economic ties with Russia, provides declarative support to Ukraine and advances a peace mission, but puts forward no proposals for resolving the conflict.
- The constantly changing rhetoric of U.S. President Trump and his efforts, more aimed at forcing Ukraine into capitulation, make the already slippery ground of negotiations even more precarious.
- Finally, no country is providing any security guarantees to Ukraine.
All these factors do not contribute to the development of peace talks; on the contrary, they deepen the quagmire.
Note: The original language of the interview with Ukraine’s ambassador in Ankara is Turkish.
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