Trump helped Putin secure diplomatic win in Turkey negotiations — journalist Portnikov

He shared his opinions with Espreso TV.

“What is Putin’s real goal? He wants the war to keep going and wants negotiations to happen while fighting continues. His view is very different from Trump’s, Zelenskyy’s, or European leaders’, who believe in a ceasefire first, then talks. The fact that everyone agreed to negotiate during the fighting — and Ukraine only agreed under Trump’s strong pressure — means Putin scored a brilliant diplomatic and political win over us, the U.S., the EU, and the UK before talks even started. This is Putin’s victory. The ongoing negotiations are a total, 100% victory for him,” Portnikov said.

In his view, Putin owes this victory to one person — Donald Trump. Everyone, including Zelenskyy and European leaders, has to adapt to Trump to stop him from labeling Ukraine uncooperative and cutting military financial support.

“That means this isn’t really about negotiations at all. Zelenskyy, Macron, Merz, Starmer, Tusk, and Erdogan are all doing a kind of ‘dance’ in Albania today — dancing around Trump like a naughty child, trying to convince him that everything is fine. Meanwhile, Putin is calmly using this situation, following the political plan he set after Trump became U.S. president, coldly rejecting all proposals and blocking every move by his opponents,” the journalist said.

According to him, on May 12, Putin faced a tough situation with the ceasefire but managed to get out of it, held a night briefing and announced that negotiations would resume. An appropriate response to Putin would have been to say: "Yes, if you want to negotiate, that’s fine, we also support talks. But we are now imposing agreed sanctions on you because you haven’t declared a ceasefire. We’re waiting for you to agree to a ceasefire, and only then should the Ukrainians come to the negotiations."

“The opposite happened. While Putin is celebrating in the Kremlin, we are busy discussing what might happen at these talks. Nothing will happen there, the victory is already his. We have already lost the negotiations. Let’s forget about them and focus on how to overcome this defeat in the future,” Portnikov concluded.

Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Istanbul

In a nighttime address on May 11, Russian leader Vladimir Putin claimed he was ready for direct talks with Ukraine in Turkey next week, but he dismissed the idea of a 30-day truce. In response, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would keep working with both sides and predicted that the coming week would be “great.”

Advisor to the head of the Ukrainian President's Office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would not meet with any Russian representative other than Vladimir Putin in Turkey on May 15. Later, Zelenskyy himself confirmed his personal visit to Turkey for a meeting with Putin.

On the evening of May 14, Russia announced the composition of its delegation for talks with Ukraine in Istanbul.

Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later stated that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not be present during the talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkey on May 15.

On May 16, a trilateral meeting of delegations from Ukraine, the United States, and Turkey took place in Istanbul. Following this, negotiations between representatives of Russia and Ukraine began. The Ukrainian Defense Minister said, “We talked about a 1,000-for-1,000 exchange and are working on other details of the swap.” According to Umerov, the parties are also preparing a potential meeting between the countries' leaders.