Putin skips Ukraine talks in Turkey as Russia shirks pressure from Trump, hurls insults at Zelenskyy instead

Istanbul — Russia and Ukraine traded insults on Thursday as negotiators were due, tentatively, to meet in Turkey for the first direct peace talks in more than three years. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed Russia for sending a "decorative" delegation as he touched down in Ankara for a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Russian officials, for their part, called Zelenskyy "pathetic" and a "clown" for challenging President Vladimir Putin to show up in person for the talks, while touting further territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin made it clear on Thursday that President Trump's push for a ceasefire in the three-year war — a war he repeatedly claimed he could end within hours — was not changing Moscow's entrenched position on the standoff.