ISTANBUL − Russia's Vladimir Putin spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkey, instead sending a second-tier delegation to planned peace talks, while Ukraine's president said his defence minister would head up Kyiv's team.

There is no reason to think that Trump will acquiesce to Putin’s list of demands. In fact, he has repeatedly voiced frustration with the lack of progress in the talks and has threatened to walk away, as Russia continues to creep forward, inch by bloody inch, in a long war of attrition with no end in sight.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will meet in Istanbul on Friday for their first peace talks in more than three years as both sides come under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two.