Photo: President.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. File photo of Zelenskyy and Erdogan meeting in October 2020, not a photo of today's Istanbul meeting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting Türkiye on Saturday for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, as the war with Russia intensifies on the battlefield and diplomats search for a path towards negotiations. The meeting will focus on the Russia-Ukraine war and security in the Black Sea, according to Türkiye's presidency.
What is on the agenda in Istanbul
Turkish presidential communications director Burhanettin Duran announced on Friday that Zelenskyy would meet Erdogan in Istanbul at Erdogan's invitation. The talks, to be held at Erdogan's Dolmabahce office overlooking the Bosphorus and followed by a news conference, will address steps to strengthen bilateral cooperation as well as regional developments, above all the war and Black Sea security.
Zelenskyy confirmed the trip in his nightly video address on Friday, describing the talks in Türkiye as important and saying Kyiv was pursuing all available diplomatic opportunities. He said he hoped a trilateral meeting of negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States could take place in Abu Dhabi between November 6 and 10, Reuters reported. The two leaders last met in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and Türkiye has hosted several rounds of Ukrainian-Russian meetings since Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022.
A night of strikes on both sides
The diplomacy comes after another heavy night of attacks. Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 134 drones overnight from Friday into Saturday, including 72 jet-powered Shahed drones as well as Gerbera and decoy drones, and that air defences had shot down or suppressed 105 of them by 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. Hits were recorded at 20 locations and debris fell at a further 10, while a drone strike on a house in Kharkiv injured five people, according to Ukrinform and Ukrainska Pravda.
Ukraine's General Staff reported 173 combat engagements along the front line on October 30, with the fiercest fighting in the Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka sectors. Russia, meanwhile, reported intercepting 113 Ukrainian drones over several regions and striking a military cargo vessel south of Odesa, according to the Emirates News Agency. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Ukrainian attacks had targeted three oil refineries and a petrochemical complex.
In Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region, more than 200,000 people remained without power on Friday after Russian attacks, authorities said, a day after a Russian drone strike on a busy railway platform in Dnipro killed at least 14 people and wounded more than a dozen others, an attack Zelenskyy described as horrific.
The Black Sea flashpoint
Black Sea security is central to the Istanbul agenda because Türkiye, which maintains ties with both Russia and Ukraine, has grown increasingly concerned about attacks on commercial shipping. Erdogan told the UN General Assembly in September that attacks on commercial vessels were unacceptable, and Ankara has put forward a proposal aimed at halting strikes on civilian ships. Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler warned on October 28 that Ankara reserved the right to take legal action if Turkish-flagged or Turkish-owned vessels came under attack.
The issue also featured in talks on Friday between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Atlanta, according to Turkish foreign ministry sources.
What to watch next
Separately, a rare US-brokered truce in the southern Ukrainian town of Oleshky, announced by US First Lady Melania Trump last week, allowed some residents to leave on Friday during evacuations, but it is due to end on Sunday evening. The Kremlin, meanwhile, has denied knowledge of a US proposal for a possible three-way telephone call involving the leaders of Russia, the United States and Ukraine.
Whether the Istanbul meeting produces concrete steps towards the November negotiating formats Zelenskyy hopes for, or simply restates Türkiye's mediating role, will become clearer at the leaders' news conference. For now, the visit underlines Türkiye's unusual position in the war: a NATO member talking to both sides while its own shipping and coastline sit close to the fighting.
Sources: Reuters; TRT World; Turkish presidency; Ukrinform; Dawn; Emirates News Agency.