A FTER A WEEK of brinkmanship, Volodymyr Zelensky departed for peace negotiations in Turkey still unsure who he would be talking to. Vladimir Putin stayed silent for nearly four days, before turning down the Ukrainian’s dare of a face-to-face meeting.

Ukrainian and Russian delegations arrived in Turkey yesterday for what would be the first peace talks in three years, but they spent much of the day in different cities, questioning whether they would even meet.

A Russian delegation will await its Ukrainian counterparts to begin direct peace talks at 10 a.m. local time in Istanbul on May 16, Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's delegation lead and advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin said.