Who sends Putin to Istanbul. The Kremlin announced the composition of the Russian delegation in negotiations with Ukraine

Vladimir Putin signed an order “on the composition of the Delegation of the Russian Federation for discussions with Ukraine,” Kremlin announced on Wednesday night. Given that the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski had challenged Putin to meet in Istanbul, the delegation announced by Kremlin for the direct negotiations proposed by Putin himself includes officials from the second step, including an assistant to the Russian President, two deputy ministers, two officials from the military spy. Some of them were also part of the Russian delegation that carried negotiations with Ukraine shortly after the beginning of the Russian invasion, in March 2022.

According to a statement from the Kremlin, the delegation of the Russian Federation for negotiations with Ukraine is the following:

• Vladimir Medinski – assistant to the President of Russia (the head of the delegation). He led the Russian delegations to the previous negotiations with Kiev, held after the beginning of the Russian invasion of March 2022, negotiations that failed.
• Mihail Galuzin – Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (member of the delegation)
• Igor Kostiukov – the head of the main direction of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU, Military Spying) – member of the delegation
• Aleksandr Fomin, deputy minister of defense (member of the delegation).

According to the order, the delegation also includes four “experts”:

• Aleksandr Zorin-first deputy head of the Directorate of Information of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (and he was part of the Russian delegation to the previous negotiations);
• Elena Podobreevskaia – deputy chief of the President of the Russian Federation for State Policy in the Humanitarian field;
• AA Polişciuk-director of the second department of the CIS countries within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation;
• VI Şevţov, deputy head of the Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defense.

Therefore, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not part of the Russian delegation that will go to Turkey on Thursday for discussions on the conflict in Ukraine, although the Ukrainian president, who will be in Ankara, had launched his challenge in person.

On Wednesday, Zelenski had declared himself prepared for “any negotiation format” to put an end to the war with Russia and said he would decide on “the measures that will be taken” after knowing who will represent Moscow at the scheduled discussions to take place on Thursday in Istanbul.

Zelenski also said he has the program to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday, but if the Kremlin leader will agree to fly to Istanbul, El and Erdogan will come to him.

The head of the Kiev Presidential Bureau, Andrii Iermak, said that if Putin refuses to come to Turkey, this will be the last indication of Russia's lack of will to put an end to the war.