Foretelling failure The Kremlin has instructed Russia’s news media to prepare the public for no breakthroughs in Istanbul
Meduza has learned that Russia’s state-controlled news media have received instructions from the Kremlin’s domestic policy team to portray this week’s negotiations in Turkey as a distinctly Moscow-driven event. Propagandists are advised to stress that “neither anything Donald Trump said nor anything Zelensky declared” influenced how Vladimir Putin assembled Russia’s delegation. The core public message is continuity, underscored by the return of presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Moscow’s delegation during the last Istanbul talks in 2022. The Kremlin instructed media outlets to emphasize that his role in this week’s negotiations is “only logical.” Meduza columnist Andrey Pertsev reviews the standing orders for Russian propagandists as Moscow and Kyiv return to the same negotiating table for the first time in more than three years.
“The U.S. calls for, ideally, a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. Hopefully, an acceptable ceasefire will be observed, and both [c]ountries will be held accountable for respecting the sanctity of these direct negotiations. If the ceasefire is not respected, the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions,” Donald Trump warned on social media on May 8. A few days later, at an unusually late-night press conference, Putin instead proposed the resumption of direct Russian–Ukrainian negotiations in Turkey on May 15. In response, Volodymyr Zelensky called on Putin to attend the talks himself and vowed to meet him there.
The memo issued to Russian news outlets says nothing about the position the delegation is meant to present to Ukrainian negotiators. It also says nothing about where the talks might lead or how reporters should cover any outcomes. Instead, the Kremlin instructs propagandists to argue that Ukraine faces far worse conditions now than during the March 2022 peace talks, though the memo doesn’t specify what exactly has deteriorated. (In the three years since those initial negotiations, Russian troops have advanced deeper into Ukrainian territory and Moscow has annexed four more regions of Ukraine.)
At the same time, the Kremlin is already instructing Russia’s media to prepare the public for a diplomatic failure in Istanbul. The memo cites the risk of new Western sanctions but stresses that these measures “will not harm the country’s development,” that Russia “is successfully coping with any sanctions,” and that the federal government’s budget “was drafted with them in mind.” News outlets should remind the public that Western sanctions on Russian energy exports have failed and the sector continues to develop steadily.
On Wednesday evening, Moscow announced the names of its delegation members. In addition to Medinsky, the team includes Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, GRU chief Igor Kostyukov, and Deputy Defense Minister General Alexander Fomin. The Kremlin did not specify what demands the delegation would present in Istanbul, but Russian officials have characterized the talks as a continuation of diplomacy that collapsed in the early months of the full-scale invasion. The Zelensky administration, European leaders, and Donald Trump have called on Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire without preconditions, threatening another round of sanctions if Moscow refuses. However, President Putin has voiced skepticism about the possibility of such a ceasefire.
A political strategist working with the Kremlin told Meduza that the Kremlin’s domestic policy team didn’t participate in the delegation’s preparations and didn’t discuss the negotiations with any of the officials bound for Istanbul. The source said the administration’s staff likely concluded independently that deadlock is the most probable outcome, “given this lineup.” “That’s why the memo mentions sanctions as the most probable Western response to the talks,” he said.
In July of last year, a similar memo from the Kremlin instructed loyal media outlets to describe Putin’s proposals to resume negotiations in Istanbul as an initiative that “could swiftly end the conflict in Ukraine.” At the time, Putin’s conditions for peace included Kyiv ceding to Russia all of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions — including areas that were not under Russian military control.
Article by Andrey Pertsev
Translation by Kevin Rothrock