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A hard-line aide to the Russian president will instead lead the delegation, according to a Kremlin statement.
May 14, 2025, 7:46 p.m. ET
Russia on Wednesday released a list of officials who will attend peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey. But a key person was missing: President Vladimir V. Putin.
The absence on the list of the Russian leader, who ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that began the war, was a strong indication that Mr. Putin would not come with face to face with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has called him a murderer. The Kremlin said Mr. Putin himself had signed off on the delegation.
President Trump, who had begun pushing for peace talks before he took back the White House, had said he would consider joining the meeting in Turkey.
“I was thinking about actually flying over there,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a White House news conference on Monday.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump, who is on a three-nation tour of the Middle East, indicated that he, too, would skip the talks and would instead visit the United Arab Emirates as planned. But he said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would attend.
“Tomorrow, we’re all booked out, you understand that,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re going to U.A.E. tomorrow. So we have a very full situation. Now that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it to save a lot of lives and come back. But, yeah, I’ve been thinking about it.”
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