Russia-Ukraine War Recent: US says,

Russia’s Vladimir Putin turned a challenge to face face to face with Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey on Thursday, instead of sending another-layer delegation to planned peace talks, while Ukraine’s president said his defense minister would lead Kyiv’s team up.

They will be the first direct conversations between the pages since March 2022, but hope for a major breakthrough was further bulging by US President Donald Trump, who said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Putin.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later repeated this view and told journalists in the Turkish resort Antalya that Washington “had no high expectations” for Ukraine conversations in Istanbul.

The head of the Russian delegation, President adviser Vladimir Medinsky, said he expected Ukraine’s representatives to show up to the beginning of discussions on Friday in Istanbul at. 10 local time.

“We are ready to work,” said Mr Medinsky in a video posted on the Telegram Messaging app. He said his delegation had held “productive” conversations on Thursday night with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

The Ministry of Russia said on Thursday that its forces seized two more settlements in their driving through eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv did not come such recognition, and its supreme commander said matches raged over 1,100 km of the front line.

According to Russia, their forces had seized Novoolekeksandrivka, a village near Pokrovsk, a logistics hub that Moscow has targeted for months without catching it.

The Ministry of Defense said its forces had also taken cod, further northeast and near two other cities of Moscow would like to catch in the longer term – Slovian and Kramatorsk.

The General Staff in Ukraine’s military performed in a late evening report Novooleexandrivka as one of more than dozen settlements, as it said had come under Russian attack.

The general staff did not mention cod, but the popular blog Deepstate said Russian forces had tried to seize the settlement but had been repelled.

The claims from both sides could not be verified independently.