A team of Russian negotiators is in Istanbul on Thursday for the first direct peace talks with Ukraine in more than three years. Russia’s Foreign Ministry officials say the delegation is “ready for serious work.”

President Putin, who, as expected, is not there in person, tapped his aide and former culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, to lead the talks, which many Western analysts have claimed is an ‘insult’ given it’s not someone more senior. Medinsky, it should be remembered, oversaw the failed 2022 peace talks with Kiev in the weeks after the February invasion.

Alongside Medinsky are Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, and Igor Kostyukov, the head of Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU).

Supporting these main negotiators are group of advisers, including senior officials from the Foreign and Defense Ministries, along with Putin aides. The Kremlin confirmed the identities of its negotiating team by releasing footage of Putin meeting with the negotiation group late Wednesday.

Other top officials were seen present in the send-off meeting in Russia, among them Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Russia’s chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov – which perhaps underscores that Moscow is indeed taking the Istanbul talks very seriously.

But many are calling this a ‘slap in the face’ and an insult to Trump, who has strongly backed direct talks, and who even urged Putin to be there in person.

Trump has warned that he is “always considering” additional sanctions against Russia if he believes Moscow is blocking or snubbing the peace process.

As for Ukraine’s President Zelensky, he has for the past week been making a big show of how he’s willing to be in Istanbul, and Putin is not. He’s been repeatedly goading Putin to be there, saying that if he’s not, it proves Moscow is not interested in the peace process.

However, this has clearly been a performative effort more geared to show President Trump that Kiev is ‘willing’ – likely in hopes that Washington gives Zelensky stronger backing, and of course a steady supply of weapons and intelligence. To some degree, Zelensky’s bellicose rhetoric may itself have sabotaged talks before they had even begun.

But Zelensky has shown up in Istanbul, somewhat surprisingly. “I am here” – he has emphasized (in once again a bit of messaging primarily aimed at the White House).

The Wall Street Journal’s take is as follows: “Ignoring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to meet for direct high-level talks in Turkey, Russian leader Vladimir Putin dispatched to Istanbul a team of junior officials, making it uncertain that negotiations between the warring nations would occur at all.”

But Russia analyst and author of Forged In War: A Military History of Russia From its Beginnings To Today, Mark Geleotti, has a very different take, featured below [emphasis ZH]:

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It’s easy (and not wholly untrue) to slam Vladimir Medinsky, leading the Russian delegation to Istanbul as a nobody, but perversely, although I think it monstrously unlikely anything meaningful will come from the talks, the composition of the delegation is encouraging.

Putin was never likely to attend, not least as he wasn’t going to allow it to look as if he had been manipulated and dared by Zelensky. Besides, sometimes it can help break a logjam (think Reagan/Gorbachev), but leaders usually turn up to seal the deal at the end of the process, after experts have done all the hard preparatory work away from the cameras.

Do we honestly think two men who so plainly loathe each other and who have been shamelessly posturing for Trump’s benefit were going to reach some kind of meeting of minds? Possible, but unlikely.

Medinsky led the talks in 2022 that failed to reach a usable deal (we can discount the myth that Zelensky was about to agree to Russia’s demands until Boris Johnson nixed it) so this is meant to signal continuity in process and demands.

Medinsky’s very lack of personal authority isn’t a snub, so much as a sign that Putin wants to manage any process by remote control. He’s a human drone, which at least means any positions he advances/agrees already have VVP’s ok

The rest of the delegation likewise isn’t showy (though the presence of military intel chief Kostyukov is interesting as they were key in POW swaps) but likewise meant to signal a willingness to do serious work. (Although this doesn’t necessarily mean make necessary compromises).

Of course, with no hint that Russia is about to relax its implausible and unfair demands, this may all be for show. It probably is, alas. But talking is always good as there is a *chance*, however minuscule, that the talks can lead somewhere.

So although Medinsky is a shallow ideologist, and sending him is in a way a snub, a means for Putin to try and reject Zelensky’s challenge while not looking wholly uncooperative in Trump’s eyes.

…whereas before I was 99% pessimistic about the talks, now I’m only 98% so. That is as much room for optimism as there is, these days.