Russia-Ukraine war latest: Trump says he could join Putin and Zelensky at Turkey peace summit

The European Union does not intend to revive its imports of Russian energy after a potential peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, the bloc’s Energy Commissioner said this morning.

“The European Union is very clear, we do not wish energy from Russia in the future. We don’t wish it now, and we will not wish it after a peace,” Dan Jorgensen told reporters at a meeting of EU ministers in Warsaw.

The EU intends to halt imports of Russian natural gas by the end of 2027 to deprive Russia of revenue that helps fuel his war on Ukraine, the bloc’s executive branch said last week.

“Putin has shown that he doesn’t mind weaponising gas,” Mr Jorgensen has said as he outlined the plan last week.

“We do not want to fill up his war chest and support his war economy because who knows which countries will be next.”

The European bloc says it has cut gas imports from 45 per cent to 19 per cent, and oil from 27 per cent to 3 per cent, of its prewar levels. But that still makes it Russia’s biggest gas client, with pipelines in operation across the Black Sea, Belarus, and Turkey, according to the Energy and Clean Air think tank.

Russia says its foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan spoke yesterday to discuss Vladimir Putin’s proposal to hold direct Russian-Ukrainian talks this week in Turkey.

“The heads of the two ministries discussed issues linked with the initiative by Russian Federation President VV Putin about beginning direct talks on a Ukrainian settlement on 15 May in Istanbul,” the ministry said in a statement.

A Turkish diplomatic source earlier said the two ministers had spoken, but gave no further details.

Mr Putin issued the proposal at the weekend after European leaders met in Kyiv and urged Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in its war in Ukraine by Monday or face new sanctions.

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan said that he expected the two sides to reach a compromise in the coming days that might break the deadlock over whether talks could begin without a truce in place.

In Kyiv, residents expressed a mixture of hope and despondency at the latest peace efforts.

Russian president Vladimir Putin doesn’t want a truce to halt the war, because “it will mean that he has lost,” Antonina Metko, 43, told AP.

“That is why they are postponing it. And everything will continue in the same way. Unfortunately,” she said.

Ukraine, along with European allies, has demanded that Russia accept a ceasefire starting Monday [yesterday] before holding peace talks. Moscow effectively rejected that proposal and instead called for direct negotiations in Istanbul.

Vladyslav Nehrybetskyi, 72, was more upbeat, saying that “the seeds” of a peace agreement are being sown, even though “a difficult process” lies ahead.

Ukraine’s government has tried to keep up the momentum for a peace deal started by the Trump administration.

While the Kremlin has effectively rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposed by the European nations, it has reiterated it would take part in possible peace talks later this week without preconditions.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky threw down the gauntlet to his Russian counterpart and said he is willing to meet Vladimir Putin in Turkey “personally” to settle the war.

In the past 24 hours, there has been no direct response from the Kremlin to the invitation made by Mr Zelensky for a face-to-face meeting.

But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to say who might travel to Istanbul from the Russian side.

“Overall, we’re determined to seriously look for ways to achieve a long-term peaceful settlement. That is all,” Mr Peskov said.

If Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin, who make no secret of their contempt for each other, were to meet on Thursday it would be their first face-to-face meeting since December 2019.

Donald Trump has suggested he could join Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin in Turkey this week if the two leaders meet for peace talks there.

“You may have a good result out of the Thursday meeting in Turkey … and I believe the two leaders are going to be there. I’ve got so many meetings, but I was thinking about actually flying over there. There’s a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen, but we’ve got to get it done,” Mr Trump said in the White House yesterday.

Mr Trump’s current schedule has him visiting Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar this week.

The US president added that he insisted that the meeting between the two leaders takes place.

“I think you’re going to have … maybe a good meeting, you have the potential for a good meeting. A meeting wasn’t going take place, and I insisted that that meeting take[s] place…,” Mr Trump said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has backed Donald Trump’s presence at peace talks in Istanbul this week, saying Ukraine has “always supported diplomacy” and that he is “ready to come to Türkiye”.

“President Erdogan has expressed full readiness to host the meeting. It is important that President Trump fully supports the meeting, and we would like him to find an opportunity to come to Türkiye,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

He also called out silence from the Kremlin on direct offers from Kyiv for peace talks.

“Moscow has remained silent all day regarding the proposal for a direct meeting. A very strange silence. One way or another, Russia will have to end this war – and the sooner, the better. There is no sense in continuing the killing,” he said.

Ukraine’s air defence units destroyed all 10 drones that Russia launched overnight, Ukraine’s air force said this morning.

This is the lowest number of drones that Russia has launched in an overnight attack in at least several weeks, according to Reuters’ calculations.

The Kremlin has fired back against Poland’s claim Russia was behind a fire that destroyed a shopping centre in Warsaw last year.

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski said yesterday that he was ordering the closure of Russia’s consulate in the southern city of Krakow in response to the blaze.

“The Russian consulate will have to leave. And if these attacks continue, we’ll take further action,” Mr Sikorski said.

Speaking with journalists, Kremlin spokesperson DmitryPeskov described the accusations as being groundless and rooted in anti-Russian sentiment.

He also said that Warsaw’s decision to close the consulate would damage bilateral relations between Russia and Poland, which Mr Peskov described as already being in “a deplorable state.”

The month-long break from fighting was designed, Zelensky said, as the “foundation for diplomacy” to allow talks for a longer deal. It was supposed to be a continuation of a three-day temporary truce that Putin had initially called, but which expired on Sunday.

And instead of pausing fighting, Putin called for direct peace talks to be held on 15 May in Istanbul, brokered by his frenemy, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

We can only assume Putin expected his spanner-in-the-works suggestion to be rejected by Zelensky.

Chief international correspondent Bel Trew looks at how the week might unfurl:

The Ukrainian military’s general staff said that as of 10pm (1900 GMT) yesterday, there have been 133 clashes with Russian forces along the frontline since midnight, when the ceasefire was to have come into effect.

Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksander Syrskyi, was quoted by Volodymyr Zelensky as saying the heaviest fighting still gripped the Donetsk region, the focus of the eastern front, and Russia’s western Kursk region, nine months after Kyiv’s forces staged a cross-border incursion.

The fighting was at the same intensity it would be if there were no ceasefire, said Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for the military on Ukraine’s eastern front.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the Toretsk direction in Ukraine, while Russian forces advanced at Toretsk, Pokrovsk, and Novopavlivka.