Talker, technocrat, soldier, spy Zelensky called Russia’s delegation for the Istanbul talks a ‘sham.’ Here’s who Putin sent to negotiate with Ukraine — and why they matter.

Last Sunday, Vladimir Putin proposed resuming direct negotiations with Kyiv in Istanbul on Thursday, May 15. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded that he was ready to meet Putin there in person. Then, for several days, Russian officials demurred over whether the president would attend. On the eve of the planned talks, Putin released a list of officials appointed to Russia’s delegation — and he wasn’t on it. The group, which Zelensky subsequently called a “sham delegation,” includes Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian negotiating team during the last direct talks with Ukraine in 2022, and the head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. With the talks now reportedly set to begin on Friday, Meduza explains who Putin appointed to the Kremlin’s delegation what their presence might reveal about Moscow’s goals.

Late on the night of May 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the lineup of his delegation for planned peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul. Leading the group was Vladimir Medinsky, a presidential aide.

At a preparatory meeting ahead of the talks, Putin was joined not only by members of the delegation but also by several of the most high-ranking figures in Russia’s political and security establishment: Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, presidential aide and foreign-policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, Foreign Intelligence Director Sergey Naryshkin, National Guard Director Viktor Zolotov, General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov, and commanders of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

Presumably, some of those figures could have gone to Istanbul themselves. Instead, Putin sent Medinsky, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Military Intelligence (GRU) Chief Igor Kostyukov, and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who traveled to Turkey in person, dismissed the Russian delegation as “sham.”

In effect, this is practically the same delegation that represented Russia at the previous talks with Ukraine in Istanbul in the spring of 2022. Medinsky is once again leading the group, accompanied by a deputy foreign minister overseeing CIS affairs — then Andrey Rudenko, now Mikhail Galuzin — and Deputy Defense Minister Fomin, who is responsible for international military affairs. This time around, the group also includes Russia’s military intelligence chief, General Kostyukov.

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Former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev told Meduza that the makeup of the delegation signals Putin’s desire to return to the 2022 negotiating framework and “pretend nothing ever happened — that three years have passed, and we’re in the same place.”

Back in 2022, the Medinsky-led delegation arrived in Istanbul with sweeping demands for Kyiv’s capitulation, asking for Ukraine to drastically reduce its armed forces, abandon its bid to join NATO, and renounce any attempt to reclaim Crimea by force.

According to Bondarev, the composition of the Russian delegation itself doesn’t necessarily mean Putin isn’t serious about negotiations. What matters more, he says, is that the Russian president refused to agree to a ceasefire during the talks — a signal, in Bondarev’s view, that regardless of diplomatic gestures, Russia still intends to “keep pressuring Ukraine until it begs for mercy.”

One new face at the table is Igor Kostyukov. Andrei Soldatov, a journalist who specializes in Russia’s security services, told Meduza that Putin is increasingly involving intelligence officials in international negotiations. For instance, GRU First Deputy Head Vladimir Alekseyev took part in talks over the Black Sea grain deal in the summer of 2022. General Sergey Beseda — now an adviser to the FSB director and formerly head of the FSB’s Fifth Service, which conducted operations in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion — was involved in negotiations with the Americans in Saudi Arabia.

Soldatov sees two dynamics at play: on the one hand, Putin tends to entrust the most sensitive matters to people from the intelligence services. On the other, senior officials in those agencies understand how much weight Putin places on the talks — and see participation as a way to raise their own standing in the president’s eyes.

In most international negotiations, intelligence services — especially military intelligence — traditionally handles prisoner exchanges. But in Russia’s case, Soldatov says, that’s more of a pretext. What the Russian intelligence services really want is a seat at the table — and what they’re after is something else entirely. For example, restoring ties with their European counterparts. “The Russian delegation is known for always introducing unexpected topics,” he notes.

Kostyukov is under U.S. sanctions for interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which allegedly involved GRU hackers. He’s also sanctioned by the European Union over the 2018 poisoning of the Skripals in the U.K.

Each member of Russia’s Istanbul delegation has also been paired with an expert. Medinsky is accompanied by Yelena Podobreyevskaya, deputy head of the Presidential Directorate for Humanitarian Policy and former head of Medinsky’s office. Galuzin is paired with Alexey Polishchuk, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Second CIS Department, which oversees relations with Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. Fomin is joined by Viktor Shevtsov, deputy head of the Defense Ministry’s Directorate for International Military Cooperation.

The most intriguing of the supporting figures is Kostyukov’s counterpart, GRU General Alexander Zorin. During Russia’s military campaign in Syria from 2015 to 2017, Zorin earned a reputation as a skilled battlefield negotiator. He brokered ceasefires, negotiated surrenders of key positions, and arranged humanitarian corridors. In 2022, Zorin — alongside General Alekseyev — led negotiations with Ukrainian forces during the siege of Mariupol, which ultimately ended in the surrender of the Azovstal steel plant.

According to Soldatov, Zorin’s inclusion shows that for the Kremlin, theses are negotiations for negotiations’ sake. “There may be accompanying tactical aims — sending a message to the Ukrainians that the tone and structure of negotiations will resemble Mariupol, and that they can expect the same treatment,” he says. “But by and large, no one expects a major breakthrough.”