> Three meetings in Russia — in February, March and April — between Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff produced nothing.

> A face-to-face meeting scheduled for May 15-16 in Istanbul — suggested by Vladimir Putin himself, and believed to be between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — devolved into a low-level delegation from Moscow showing up without their leader, and Zelensky withdrawing in the face of the intentional insult. It ended with the two leaderless delegations agreeing to a prisoner-of-war swap, but no progress toward a ceasefire or serious end-of-war negotiations.

> A one-on-one telephone call between Putin and Donald Trump on May 19th lasted two hours, and again, nothing came of it . . .

. . . except that Putin agreed to another meeting in Istanbul on Monday, June 2nd. And he offered to present a “memorandum” of proposed talking points for the meeting, setting forth Russia’s requirements for a settlement. Zelensky again demanded an immediate 30-day ceasefire pending further talks, but was once more rebuffed.

A proposed agenda has been submitted by Kyiv, but nothing has been forthcoming from Moscow . . . word from the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, being that Moscow’s conditions for a ceasefire would be discussed in Turkey, and not before.

And now, just one day before the scheduled June 2nd meeting, as Russia’s forces continue to rain death and destruction on Ukraine, Putin keeps the world waiting to find out what his next delaying tactic will be.

Only this time, Zelensky is also threatening not to waste another trip to Turkiye in light of Putin’s continuing refusal to commit to a ceasefire, or even to submit his promised “memorandum” ahead of the meeting.

If this were an old radio soap opera, the announcer would be telling us to “stay tuned for tomorrow’s exciting episode of . . .”

Unfortunately, this is not a soap opera; it’s real life. But there is one similarity: that tingling feeling of suspense just before the show starts — wondering whether the villain of the drama has been plotting some new evil behind the scenes, only to spring, once again, on his hapless victim at the 11th hour . . . or, perhaps, whether this time the intended victim will finally have called the villain’s bluff.

So I guess we will have to stay tuned after all. We’ll be back with you tomorrow . . . same time, same station.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/1/25