TL;DRussia Special Edition: Turkish Delight?
14 May 2025: Waiting in Istanbul...
First off, yes, I know — it’s been a while.
I’m working on a way of reformatting my approach to this newsletter that will allow me to get back to publishing weekly while leaving the rest of my life at least moderately manageable. (Paul Krugman does this daily — don’t ask me how. Get a life, Paul!) Look for that to restart this coming weekend.
In the meantime, though, there’s this little thing happening, maybe, or maybe not happening, but in any case definitely something is happening, or maybe nothing, in Istanbul. You may have noticed. Or you may not have noticed, particularly if you’re in the US, because for some reason the Times, the Post and the rest of the newsmedia have buried this story way under the digital fold, if they even bothered to cover it at all. But it kinda matters.
Here, in a nutshell, is what happened: After Trump made increasing noises about being frustrated with Putin (but also with Zelensky), and after Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Donald Tusk and Friedrich Merz went to Kyiv to promise more arms and more sanctions, Putin gave a 2am press conference and announced that Russia was ready for direct talks with Ukraine. Not for the 30-day ceasefire Zelensky had proposed, mind you. But for talks.
Everyone said this was a masterstroke — moving beyond the ceasefire and putting the ball in Zelensky’s court. Well, Zelensky batted it right back, saying he’d be happy to meet Putin personally in Istanbul, and then making plans to go to Ankara to meet with Erdogan, but also to be ready if Putin decided to show up. Trump said he’d come, too, if Putin did. Putin let it be known that he might come, if both Trump and Zelensky would be there. But then he changed his mind.
It looks as though there will be a meeting, albeit I can’t really tell you who will be there. The Russian delegation evidently includes Yury Ushakov, Putin’s chief foreign policy adviser, and Vladimir Medinsky, Putin’s chief adviser for the creative reimagining of history, but not Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The US will be represented, it seems, by Special Envoy for Gaza and Portraits from Putin Steve Witkoff and, maybe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and/or National Security Adviser Marco Rubio (and/or Archivist of the United States Marco Rubio, and/or USAID Administrator Marco Rubio). I can’t quite figure out who will represent the Ukrainians, but it will be somebody, and it won’t be Zelensky.
On one level, shenanigans aside, this is important. It is the first time Ukraine and Russia have sat down at a table, without intermediaries, since very early in the war. It could, in theory, lead to something — but don’t count on it. By my reading, there isn’t sufficient overlap in the parties’ interests to allow for progress.
Zelensky’s overriding aim at this stage is to push the process started by Trump towards a ceasefire that might allow for a genuine deterrent against renewed Russian aggression. In Istanbul, then, Kyiv’s position is designed to project good will towards Washington to prevent a deeper rift with Trump, while making clear the absurd maximalism of Russia’s negotiating positions and buying time for the Europeans to get their act together on a reassurance force.
Putin’s overriding aim is to achieve at the negotiating table what they can’t achieve on the battlefield, namely the neutering of Western—and particularly European—support for Ukraine. Thus, the point of coming to Istanbul is to engage just enough to keep Trump from walking away and to discourage the European’s from interfering, but not so much that Putin gets locked into a deal that leaves chips on the table.
Trump’s overriding aim is … lord only knows.
Two sides who want a war to end—even if they want it to end very differently—can achieve a peace deal. In this situation, we have one side who appears to want the war to end (the US, if you’re keeping score) but who has no apparent stake in how it ends, one side who has an existential stake in the outcome and cannot allow the war to end in a manner that would further weaken its sovereignty (Ukraine, if you’re keeping score), and one side who seems to want what it can’t have, has what it doesn’t really want, and has staked its political survival on going around in that particular circle (you can do the math).
That’s not a reason to abandon diplomacy, but don’t invest your pension pot in a peace play just yet.
If you’re interested in a bit more analysis, I give you various instances of my head talking.
On BBC News, discussing Putin’s gyrations:
On BBC Radio 5 Live, challenging the idea that Putin is a master strategist:
On The Breakfast Show with Alexander Plyuhshev and Tanya Felgengauer, trying to make sense of this whole thing in Russian (and don’t ask me where they got that god-awful picture; I haven’t looked like that in more than a decade, thankfully):
And on Популярная политика, likewise (obviously) in Russian, doing more or less the same thing:
Oh, and since this has been in my head all damned day, now it’s in yours, too.
I follow Lawrence Freedman and he also only posts periodically. Notably when he discerns critical junctures or commentary on wider aspects of geopolitics which he sees as being relevant. Quality not quantity. Relevance not punditry. PK is very very good but his abhorrence for his government policies can become repetitive. So l sit up and take notice when you post. It’s always worth the wait.
Brilliant Thanks as ever
Consider again my conjecture that Putin consciously plays a mixed strategy That is he rolls the dice to decide each move.
This may even be conscious. He seems to have done this zigzagging since the first clashes over the Donbas He had at one point a chief advisor we know has a reasonable acquaintance with game theory and enough knowledge of strategy to be head of the world chess federation
Trump seems to have known this instinctively perhaps