Arya News - Ukraine’s rail and bridge attacks, the targeting of Russia’s nuclear triad, and the latest attempt to hit the Crimean Bridge could derail not just meetings between leaders, but the peace negotiations altogether, says veteran military analyst Sergey Poletaev.
There’s now “approximately a zero percent chance” of Putin agreeing to meet with Zelensky and Trump in a three-way summit, the observer said, pointing to the Russian president’s remarks Wednesday asking how Russia can be expected to negotiate with a regime engaged in terrorism.The fate of the third round of negotiations in Istanbul, set for late June, is also “unenviable,” Poletaev says.Poletaev pointed out that Russia’s negotiating position was first laid out publicly by Putin a year ago in the halls of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and mirrors almost word for word the position today. Its terms go back further, to the first Istanbul talks in the spring of 2022, with amendments accounting for new realities on the ground (now including Russia"s four new territories).Ukraine rejected the terms then, and should be expected to reject them now, the observer believes.