Lower-level Ukrainian delegations to negotiate after Russian president shies from Zelenskyy’s challenge to meet; Sumy attack kills three. What we know on day 1,177

Vladimir Putin has refused a challenge to attend peace talks in Turkey but Nato ministers will still meet there as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, promises to update allies on UK steps to “force Putin’s hand” while the Russian president refuses to accept a 30-day ceasefire. Britain and its military allies will be working to “step up” their collective security at the informal meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Antalya, Lammy said. Military officers from about 30 countries have been drawing up plans to enforce a potential peace in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is due in the Turkish capital, Ankara , on Thursday where he will meet with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Ukraine-Russia talks are due to take place in Istanbul on Thursday, but due to Putin’s refusal to attend, they will not be at the presidential level . Putin announced on Wednesday that he would send Vladimir Medinsky, a presidential adviser; and Alexander Fomin, a deputy defence minister; Igor Kostyukov, an intelligence director; and Mikhail Galuzin, a deputy foreign minister. Zelenskyy had promised to reciprocate if Putin attended, and said this week that Putin skipping the talks would signal an unwillingness to seek peace that should be met with massive western sanctions and more military aid for Ukraine.

Significantly, Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, both top negotiators for the Kremlin, were not named in the Russian delegation. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is expected in Istanbul on Friday to take part in what are the first direct peace talks since failed efforts in the first weeks of the Russian full-scale invasion. Rubio met with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, on Wednesday in Antalya.

Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz , said on Wednesday that there must not be any settlement in Ukraine in the form of a “dictated peace” from Moscow. Addressing parliament, Merz warned of “militarily created facts against Ukraine’s will”, telling lawmakers it was “of paramount importance that the political west does not allow itself to be divided”.

A Russian missile attack on Wednesday killed three people at an industrial site near the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, said the regional governor, Oleh Hryhorov. Sumy sits opposite Russia’s Kursk region – a Russian missile attack on the city of Sumy on Palm Sunday killed 35 people.