Russia skips Ukraine talks in Turkey, negotiates prisoner swap with U.S.

Russian representatives will not take part in talks on Ukraine in Turkey on November 19, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier he would go to Turkey on Wednesday in an attempt to revive negotiations with Russia on ending the war.

A Turkish source said that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff would join the planned talks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “No, there will be no Russian representatives in Turkey tomorrow. For now, these contacts are taking place without Russian participation.”

Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin was open to conversations with the U.S. and Turkey on the results of the talks.

Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev will not join the meetings in Istanbul either, a source close to Dmitriev told Reuters on Tuesday.

“Dmitriev held very productive discussion with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff on October 24–26 in the United States,” the source added.

Diplomacy has largely stalled in recent weeks, with U.S. President Donald Trump last month sanctioning Russian oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft in a bid to retaliate for what he says is Moscow’s stalling of the talks.

In an interview published on Tuesday, Dmitriev told Axios that Russia and the U.S. have discussed the possibility of conducting another prisoner exchange.

“I met some U.S. officials and members of the Trump team on some issues that are humanitarian in nature, such as possible exchanges of prisoners that the U.S. side has been working on,” Axios quoted Dmitriev as saying.

A U.S. official confirmed his statement and said the U.S. side was receptive, but cautioned that nothing was imminent, Axios said.