Jimmy Rushton: Kyiv based foreign policy analyst on Putin and Zelenskyy pull out of peace talks in Turkey

Questions have been raised over what can actually be achieved today with Russia and Ukraine both backing away from sending their leaders to peace talks in Turkey.

After the Kremlin confirmed it's sending low-level official Vladimir Medinsky, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decided to send his Defence Minister instead.

Zelenskyy says Russia isn't serious about real talks after he'd challenged Vladimir Putin to be there in person. 

Kyiv based foreign policy analyst Jimmy Rushton told Ryan Bridge essentially, Putin had challenged Zelenskyy first.

The timing of the meeting remains unconfirmed. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Surprise, surprise, Putin didn't turn out for peace talks in Ukraine,
Krimlin confirming Russia's delegation is instead being lead by Presidential
aid of Vladimir Medinsky. Zelensky is also pulled out, sending
his defense Minister.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Russia offered in the media that Putin is ready for
direct negotiations, and then are the information the roles that
it's not decided yet, So it's.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Just starks now, yeah, what does that mean? Jimmy Rushton
is and Kiev. He's a foreign policy and securely at
security analyst with me this morning, Jimmy, good morning, Welcome
to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hi, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
What does what does he mean Zelensky? By now they're
just talks.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Well, essentially, what Putin had said in this rather hasty
pres coompence that he rated about a week ago was
that he he challenged Zelensky to come to Turkey and
have a conversation face to face. As Zelensky took him
up on the offer, he turned up in Turkey, but
obviously Putin has not, and he sent Medinsky, who is
a very low level official really in the Kremlin. He's

(01:01):
also the same Russian official that led the peace talks
in early twenty twenty two, and to be honest, peace
talks is a generous term because at that point Mitinsky
was essentially saying that Ukrainians should unconditionally surrender. So it's
really seen by the Ukrainian side as a slap in
the face and a sign that Russia continues their maximalist
goals of subjugating Ukraine and making it into a Russian

(01:24):
puppet state.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Is there anyone no one's preparing, even in the background,
behind the scenes, for there to be some kind of
serious ceasefire or peace agreement. I mean, Russia's still building
new explosives facilities to build more drugs and build more bombs.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean it's clear that the Russians are
planning for this war to continue for some time. And
it's pretty clear if you look at some of their
recent build ups is that they're you know, they're building
up forces along the Finnish border, and they're building up
forces along the Estonian border and some of the other
Baltic states as well. So it's pretty clear that they're
not ready for any sort of sustainable peace with Europe,

(02:03):
let alone Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Jimmy, what do Ukrainians think of Donald Trump's you know,
he's come out today over night and said nothing will
happen until I'm in the room with Pusian. What did
Ukrainians think when he's his stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, initially Ukrainians had a relatively favorable or at least
a more generous opinion of Trump, around forty percent of
Ukrainians back in November of last year we're willing to
give him a chance, and that's dropped around seven percent
of Ukrainians having any form of positive opinion of him.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
I mean, he's largely viewed as as someone who's definitely
not favorable to Ukraine and probably more favorable to Putin
and of a strong man, you know, people like Kim
Jong un president year of China, and he's he's not
recent as kind of a friend of the Western democracies
at all. I think for Ukrainians they feel that they
need to manage him as best they can, kind of

(02:55):
placate his ego. That was one of the reasons why
they signed this mineral steel, to give him something that
he could boast about. But yeah, I think they're really
taking it day to day trying to keep him on
side as best they can, but they're aware that he's,
you know, incredibly temperamental and he can change his opinion
pretty much on the spot.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
He's a hard dog to keep on the porch. Jimmy,
appreciate your time. Jimmy Rashton, Kiev based foreign policy security
security analysts with us this morning. For more from Early
Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news Talks it'd
be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.