Secretary of State Macro Rubio expressed a bleak outlook ahead of the discussions in Turkey, scheduled for Friday, after both Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump confirmed their absence from the event.
The peace negotiations, initially planned for Thursday, were thrown into chaos as Russian and Ukrainian representatives, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, arrived at various Turkish cities only to learn that Putin wouldn’t participate, nor would key figures from the Kremlin.
Reports indicate that tensions mounted as the delegates and mediators spent much of the day wondering about the timing of their potential meeting on Thursday, before it was eventually rescheduled to Friday.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The Kremlin on Thursday confirmed Putin was not going to participate in the peace talks.
Aboard Air Force One on Thursday, Trump suggested Putin did not attend because of a scheduling miscommunication and told reporters that there was no hope on any real progress in negotiations until he and Putin speak.
“Look, nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together. OK?” Trump said. “He was going to go, but he thought I was going to go. He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there.
“I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” he added.
Any future plans for Trump and Putin to talk remain unknown.
“What I can say with certainty is that the president’s… willing to stick with [this] as long as it takes to achieve peace,” Rubio said. “What we cannot do, however, is continue to fly all over the world and engage in meetings that are not going to be productive.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to the media following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya, on May 15, 2025, ahead of potential peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey. (Umit Bektas/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“The only way we’re going to have a breakthrough here is with President Trump sitting face to face with President Putin and determining once and for all whether there’s a path to peace,” he added.
Zelenskyy did not hold back in expressing his frustration over what he said is proof that Putin’s “attitude is unserious.”
“No time of the meeting, no agenda, no high-level of delegation – this is personal disrespect to Erdoğan, to Trump,” Zelenskyy reportedly said at a Thursday news conference after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
