The visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is critical today and tomorrow to Kyiv. It was preceded by a two -day visit to Moscow yesterday and yesterday, where he was accepted by President Putin and met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and other Russian officials. The head of Turkish diplomacy will want to secure the Ukrainian leadership a positive response to Moscow’s proposal to continue the direct negotiations with a second round Monday in Constantinople.

The Russians seem to be satisfied with Turkey as a host and a honest mediator and want to continue the Russian-Ukraine negotiations that started on May 16, though with little results.

‘We’re coming,’ Moscow says

Indeed, Sergei Lavrov said Russia has prepared a memorandum to achieve a permanent solution and is ready to present it next Monday and make the necessary statements. The Ukrainian side has also submitted its terms to Russia for peace, but it remains generally cautious before seeing the Russian text first. President Donald Trump is also cautious after the failure of the first round in Istanbul. He warned that he would decide within “about two weeks” on whether President Putin is seriously intended to end the war.

Lavrov-Rubio phone call

The special interest of the Americans was also expressed through Foreign Minister Marco Rubio in a phone call with Lavrov.

Rubio appealed to Lavrov for “a constructive dialogue good with Ukraine as the only way to end this war,” said State Department spokesman Tami Bruce. But the Russians, in order to have a Putin-Chalenski meeting, want specific commitments: Ukraine to abandon its dream of joining NATO and remain in Russian occupation the areas already occupied.

Ukraine believes that Moscow has no good intentions for peace and gathers an additional thousands of army on the border. President Zelenski at a press conference in Berlin, along with Chancellor Martz, predicted to the Russians that “they will constantly look for reasons not to end the war”. At such a negative juncture, the Turkish Foreign Minister is called upon to get the chestnuts out of the fire, which is particularly difficult, as Europeans have now been actively added.