{"id":49125,"date":"2025-05-15T11:22:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T15:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/who-are-the-diplomats-russia-and-ukraine-are-sending-to-peace-talks-in-istanbul\/15\/05\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T11:22:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T15:22:47","slug":"who-are-the-diplomats-russia-and-ukraine-are-sending-to-peace-talks-in-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/who-are-the-diplomats-russia-and-ukraine-are-sending-to-peace-talks-in-istanbul\/15\/05\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are the diplomats Russia and Ukraine are sending to peace talks in Istanbul?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ukraine and Russia are due to hold their first direct peace talks in more than three years in Istanbul on Thursday and Friday, though the exact timing and format remain unclear.<\/p>\n

Moscow has notably withheld its top diplomatic heavyweights \u2013 including Vladimir Putin\u2019s chief foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov \u2013 instead dispatching a peculiar mix of officials, among them an ultranationalist former culture minister and a notorious spymaster.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s delegation, which is comprised of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s most trusted aides, arrived in Ankara on Thursday and is expected to travel to Istanbul. Zelenskyy is not expected to attend, and neither is Putin.<\/p>\n

Team Russia<\/h2>\n

Vladimir Medinsky<\/h2>\n

Leading Russia\u2019s delegation is Vladimir Medinsky, <\/strong>a Russian ultra-conservative former culture minister and who is an aide to Putin.<\/p>\n

A staunch nationalist, he is known for promoting a heavily revised, state-centric version of Russian history and values. His Myths About Russia book series attempts to debunk perceived anti-Russian narratives but has been widely criticised for historical distortion.<\/p>\n

Medinsky once prompted ridicule by claiming that Russians \u201chave an extra chromosome\u201d, a bizarre and pseudoscientific statement meant to suggest innate Russian resilience and uniqueness.<\/p>\n

He led the Russian delegation at the spring 2022 Istanbul peace talks with Ukraine and now plays a key role in shaping Kremlin messaging on the war. He has also overseen new history textbooks portraying Ukraine as an ultranationalist state and casting the invasion as a justified response to western aggression.<\/p>\n

Igor Kostyukov<\/h2>\n

Another notable member of Russia\u2019s delegation in Turkey<\/a> is Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU, Russia\u2019s military intelligence agency, which has been behind some of Moscow\u2019s most notorious covert operations in recent years.<\/p>\n

Kostyukov is under sanction in the US for his alleged role in interfering in the 2016 presidential election, and the UK over the 2018 poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury,<\/a> which killed Dawn Sturgess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the GRU has been accused of orchestrating a series of sabotage operations across Europe<\/a>, including arson attacks, cyber-intrusions, data theft, and attempts to target undersea cables.<\/p>\n

Alexander Vasilyevich Fomin<\/h2>\n

Col Gen Alexander Vasilyevich Fomin is a seasoned Russian military officer and diplomat. Like Medinsky, Fomin was part of the Russian delegation in the 2022 peace talks with Ukraine held in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Fomin isn\u2019t a household name in Russia. A veteran of Russia\u2019s defence establishment, he has quietly built a career as one of the Kremlin\u2019s top military diplomats. Fomin\u2019s name has also come up in connection with Russia\u2019s deeper military ties to non-western allies \u2013 from arms sales to Myanmar and Egypt to increasingly warm ties with North Korea and Iran.<\/p>\n

Mikhail Galuzin<\/h2>\n

Mikhail Galuzin is not known as a typical Kremlin hardliner. Bookish, fluent in Japanese, and fond of quoting classical literature, he\u2019s long been one of the more polished faces of Russian diplomacy. He cut his teeth in the Soviet embassy in Tokyo and has remained Moscow\u2019s go-to man on all things east Asia, serving as ambassador to Indonesia and later Japan.<\/p>\n

However, Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine brought him back to Moscow. Appointed the deputy foreign minister in late 2022, Galuzin now oversees relations with Russia\u2019s post-Soviet neighbours including Ukraine, which Moscow claims is part of its \u201csphere of influence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Team Ukraine<\/h2>\n

Rustem Umerov<\/h2>\n

Rustem Umerov, Ukraine\u2019s defence minister since September 2023, is an ethnic Crimean Tatar and a former investment banker with close ties to Turkey. A fluent Turkish speaker and practising Muslim, he has played a key role in Kyiv\u2019s efforts to rally international support for the return of Crimea. Umerov co-chaired the Crimea Platform diplomatic summit and took part in Ukraine\u2019s initial negotiations with Russia in 2022. His appointment was seen as a signal of reform in the defence ministry, which had been plagued by corruption<\/p>\n

Andriy Yermak<\/h2>\n

Andriy Yermak is Ukraine\u2019s presidential chief of staff and widely regarded as the country\u2019s second most powerful figure after the country\u2019s president. A former entertainment lawyer and film producer, Yermak became a close confidant of Zelenskyy during his media career and joined his political team in 2019.<\/p>\n

Since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022, Yermak has emerged as a central figure in Ukraine\u2019s wartime leadership. He oversees foreign policy, intelligence coordination, and high-level diplomacy, including prisoner exchanges and peace negotiations. His influence is so extensive that he has been dubbed Ukraine\u2019s \u201cGreen Cardinal\u201d and \u201cde facto vice-president\u201d. Yermak\u2019s prominence has drawn praise and controversy, with critics accusing him of centralising power.<\/p>\n

Vasyl Malyuk<\/h2>\n

A surprise inclusion in the delegation, Vasyl Malyuk is Ukraine\u2019s spymaster-in-chief, serving as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) since February 2023. A career intelligence officer who rarely travels abroad in public, Malyuk has been vital in reshaping the SBU into a more agile and lethal force amid Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion. Malyuk is believed to have overseen high-profile operations, such as the arrest of the pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk and the development of maritime drones used in attacks on the Russian navy.<\/p>\n

Andriy Sybiha<\/h2>\n

Andriy Sybiha is Ukraine\u2019s foreign minister, appointed in September 2024 after a long career in diplomacy and presidential strategy. A seasoned operator fluent in English and Polish, he is widely seen as a trusted Zelenskyy loyalist, having served for years as the deputy head of the president\u2019s office, where he oversaw foreign policy and helped coordinate international partnerships during the war.<\/p>\n

Andriy Hnatov<\/h2>\n

Andriy Hnatov is Ukraine\u2019s newly appointed chief of the general staff, promoted in March 2025 as part of Zelenskyy\u2019s military reforms. A veteran marine officer with more than two decades of service, Hnatov is known for his frontline leadership and loyalty under pressure.<\/p>\n

In 2014, during Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea, Hnatov was among the few Ukrainian marines who refused to defect, leading a group of 200 troops out of the peninsula to rebuild the marine corps from scratch. He later commanded the 36th Separate Marine Brigade and played key roles in the defence of Mykolaiv and Bakhmut.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ukraine and Russia are due to hold their first direct peace talks in more than three years in Istanbul on Thursday and