The UK sent Jonathan Powell, presently National Security Advisor for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to meet with Ukraine’s acting president, Volodymyr Zelensky, ahead of the Istanbul negotiations, in order to provide “background advice” on how he should handle the meeting, as reported by The Guardian yesterday. The paper identifies Powell’s mission as making sure that Zelensky does not do “anything that alienates Trump” and guiding him in an operation to persuade President Trump that Russian President Putin is the “obstacle to peace.” They go on to describe the possible negotiations as “an unpredictable meeting in an unclear format.”
Perhaps not unrelated, Vedomosti, in their roundup of pertinent quotes around the renewed Istanbul negotiations, chose to cite Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s having said that the British are “leading Zelensky like guides.”
It is not clear whether Powell was responsible for Zelensky’s laughable attempt today to get Trump to blame Putin, as Zelensky’s acting was over the top. After losing his five-day campaign to upstage the Istanbul 2.0 negotiations, and after Zelensky’s lengthy session with Turkey’s President Erdogan, where he acceded to sending a delegation to Istanbul, he had trouble containing himself. He began: “I believe the Kremlin ruler must demonstrate leadership, and if he is ready for negotiations, then he should meet without any preconditions. Let’s meet. We’re in Ankara now.” That train had already pulled out of the station, yet Zelensky could not let it go. “He’s not here, he’s not in Istanbul. We can’t run all over the world looking for the man….”
