In parallel to a brutal war along a 1,000km front, Russia and Ukraine are locked in a titanic diplomatic battle to persuade Donald Trump that the other is the real impediment to peace.

Axar.az informs via Finacial Times, So Vladimir Putin took a big risk over the last week, slow rolling US negotiators over a peace proposal, according to officials familiar with the discussions, then refusing to turn up for talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkey that he himself had publicly initiated.

So far, the Russian leader’s refusal to engage on terms set by others has been met with little resistance — and certainly not enough to compel concessions or alter the course of his war.

The clearest sign of that came when US President Donald Trump seemed to excuse the Russian leader’s no-show on Thursday and simultaneously questioned the whole point of the Russia-Ukraine talks, saying: “Nothing’s gonna happen until Putin and I get together.”

It was a gift to Putin, who has long sought a one-on-one meeting with a president determined to normalise US-Russian relations. For the Ukrainians, it revived their worst fears — that Trump will seek to cut a deal with Putin over their heads and sell Ukraine down the river.

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