The most sought-after weapon in Ukraine: Donald Trump’s fleeting favour ...Middle East

Will he or won’t he?

The ball is again in President Vladimir Putin’s court, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will travel to Istanbul on Thursday to see whether the Kremlin leader shows up.

It was Putin’s hurried decision to offer up Istanbul as a venue for possible face-to-face talks with Ukraine that led Zelensky to take the Kremlin’s bait.

But it was Donald Trump who forced the Ukrainian leader’s hand, in the latest indication that the US President’s favour is the most coveted weapon in the conflict.

On Saturday night, Zelensky thought he was on a roll. The leaders of Europe’s four most powerful military nations – Britain, France, Germany and Poland – travelled to Kyiv to embrace him.

“Volodymyr, we stand with you to secure the just and lasting peace that Ukraine deserves”, a beaming Sir Keir Starmer told the country’s president. “All of us here, together with the US, are calling Putin out. If he’s serious about peace, then he has a chance to show it now”, he said.

The Prime Minister’s stirring words were forged when the European leaders engaged in an earlier conference call with Trump and thought they had secured his backing for further sanctions on Russia should Putin fail to join an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.

But as Saturday gave way to Sunday, buyer’s remorse appears to have set in at the White House. At 2am Moscow time on Sunday, Putin took the rare step of making a live, televised address.

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Many observers believe the lateness of the hour showed he was interested in reaching an audience of one: Trump in Washington, where the time was a more convivial 7pm.

Putin completely ignored the demands that Trump had endorsed for a ceasefire, and instead proposed the talks in Istanbul, insisting they focus on the “roots of the conflict”, a Kremlin euphemism for its desire to get rid of Ukraine as an independent state.

If Zelensky and European leaders hoped Trump was now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them, and would condemn Putin’s move as a delayed tactic, they were disappointed.

“Ukraine should agree to this IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post not long after, seemingly untroubled that the ceasefire plan was brushed aside.

Lest anyone was left in any doubt about the American President’s change of heart, he added that “I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin…HAVE THE MEETING NOW!!!”, a message dispensed with the unity of approach with Starmer, Macron, Merz and Tusk that he had shown the previous day.

Driving a wedge… and Ukraine’s response

Putin’s critics fear that the Kremlin can exploit such situations, driving a wedge between Trump and his European allies. On Saturday, Trump went along with the demands being voiced by Zelensky and his European visitors for a unified approach. Putin, the wily old operator in the Kremlin, then used his carefully timed TV address to boot it.

But Zelensky has wedges of his own, and, by indicating that he would spend Thursday sitting on the banks of the Bosphorus waiting to see Putin, was engaging in a bold gambit.

He knows that Putin never indicated a personal intention to travel to Istanbul, and never posited leader-level talks there.

It is unclear whether Trump understands that the Russian leader was likely trying only to derail demands for a ceasefire, hoping that lower-level negotiations would delay any new sanctions.

Trump backers argue that he is, as usual, one step ahead of everyone, and may be trying to force both Putin and Zelensky to face off against each other in the Turkish sunshine.

But after a weekend of whiplash, European leaders including the Prime Minister must be wondering if it will ever be possible to secure Trump’s backing for his supposed ally.

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