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.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has rejected criticism that Moscow only sent a second-tier delegation to the peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul. The most qualified experts have been dispatched to Turkey,