AFTER A WEEK of brinkmanship, Volodymyr Zelensky departed for peace negotiations in Turkey still unsure who he would be talking to. Vladimir Putin stayed silent for nearly four days, before turning down the Ukrainian’s dare of a face-to-face meeting. Pressure on the Russian leader seemed to be mounting even at the eleventh hour, with Donald Trump hinting that he would attend if Mr Putin did, and allies like the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, urging him to “go to Istanbul and negotiate, dammit.”

But the rush towards diplomacy, marked by the visit of four European leaders to Kyiv on May 10th, nonetheless suggests Ukraine’s three-year war could still be heading towards a decisive period. As far as negotiations are concerned, the starting positions of the two sides remain far apart. The Kremlin still says it wants to tackle the “root causes” of the conflict, a euphemism for NATO enlargement into eastern Europe and Ukraine’s very existence. Ukraine and its allies are pressing for something different: a ceasefire first, and then negotiations about a just peace.

At their meeting in Kyiv the European leaders suggested yet more sanctions on Russia’s energy and banking sectors would follow if Russia did not agree to that sequencing. The confidence of their rhetoric suggested that Mr Trump, on whom the most consequential sanctions would depend, was on board at that point. Whether he actually was or not depends largely on whom you speak to.

Few expect a serious breakthrough in Turkey. By sending a third-level delegation, with nobody empowered with a mandate to make any decision, Mr Putin has all but determined the limits of the talks. Mr Zelensky was still expected to meet Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on May 15th. America looks set also to attend with a high-level delegation headed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. But Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s former defence minister, who took part in peace talks abandoned without agreement three years ago, says the most that should now be expected is the “resumption of dialogue”. A Ukrainian defence source is more blunt. “This is theatre. The Russians talk about peace but we see their true intentions on our screens: massing troops in the east.” There, Russia continues to take Ukrainian territory, albeit at a snail’s pace.

The delays and evasions risk making Mr Putin look hesitant and disrespectful. He appeared to have been caught off guard by the European ultimatum on May 10th—waiting hours to deliver a brief statement to sleep-deprived journalists at 2am on May 11th. He ignored the proposed ceasefire before floating a counter-proposal to resume direct talks, with conditions soon added by his chief foreign-policy aide, Yury Ushakov.

Instead of backing the Europeans’ threats with action on sanctions, Mr Trump then equivocated, and encouraged Mr Zelensky to take up the offer of talks. After discussion with allies, and with France’s Emmanuel Macron in particular, the Ukrainian came up with the idea of challenging Mr Putin to a negotiation. This clever fudge kept Ukraine on the right side of the peace effort while turning the screw on Mr Putin. But the absence of a serious response on sanctions by Mr Trump—or acknowledgment of the Kremlin’s obfuscation—highlighted an apparent split between the Europeans and the Americans.

Even so, insiders insist that recent weeks have been positive ones for Ukraine. “Now there is momentum and hope that something might come out of it,” says a Western source. Ever since the disaster of the Oval Office showdown between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky, the Ukrainians have been working in lockstep with their Western partners. The White House argument has since been succeeded by much better moments: the presidents’ far more cordial encounter in St Peter’s Basilica; and the conclusion and unanimous ratification of a new economic and minerals deal. The essence of this new unity was perhaps clearest during a six-way conversation with Mr Trump on May 10th, after which the European leaders planned how best to respond to Mr Putin’s expected next moves.

Those involved say that with Mr Trump and Mr Putin in the mix, the road ahead will be unpredictable. Even if the Europeans want to impose a greater cost on Russia, whether they can do so will depend on Mr Trump’s appetite for sanctions. Despite recent developments and his public acknowledgment of Senator Lindsay Graham’s punishing secondary sanctions package, that still seems a stretch. The American president continues to position himself as a broker between Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainians understand it will require a lot to move Mr Trump from mediator to supporter. But there is now hope that continued Kremlin missteps could take him there. “The Russians are very dangerous, very strong negotiators,” says Mr Reznikov. “But they make mistakes.” ■

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