Despite an invitation from President Volodymyr Zelensky to meet face to face in Istanbul, President Vladimir Putin was a no-show in Turkey, sending instead an aide, Vladimir Medinsky, to head the Russian delegation in peace talks.
Medinsky headed the last and only other direct talks between the two sides in Istanbul held during the early days of the invasion in March–April 2022.
Although no longer in government, Medinsky has remained close to the Russian president. He is also among the ideologues of "Ruskiy Mir," or "Russian World," a concept that attempts to unify all Russian-speaking and ethnically Russian people in one shared space, regardless of current borders. Russia uses the concept to justify its aggression against its neighbors.
Medinsky, born in Ukraine's Cherkasy Oblast, rose through the political ranks from a member of the ruling United Russia Party to Putin aide, eventually becoming a trusted confidant in peace talks with Ukraine.
"(Medinsky) is a loyal servant," Scott Luсas, a political scientist and professor of American Studies and International Politics at University College Dublin's Clinton Institute, told the Kyiv Independent. "That's his most valuable asset."
Books, history, propaganda
Medinsky, who is under U.S. and Canadian sanctions for spreading disinformation about Russia's aggression against Ukraine, served as the Russian culture minister from 2012 to 2020.
He also holds doctoral degrees in political science and history and is the author of several nonfiction books and school textbooks. His work is known to contain Russian propaganda narratives and has been characterized as pseudo-scientific.
"Many scientists and academics in Russia are actually engaged exclusively in propaganda and falsification," said Serhii Zhukov, an analyst at the Kyiv-based Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. But with official academic titles, their "words have weight (in Russia)."
And "for Medinsky, history is not a science, but a tool for educating ideologically-driven citizens," Zhukov said.
One of the last books Medinsky worked on was a history textbook for 10th and 11th graders. Since 2023, Russian children, as well as Ukrainians living in the Russian-occupied territories, have been using the textbook, which is aligned with Russian propaganda narratives about Ukrainian history.
In Medinsky's textbook, the EuroMaidan Revolution, which began in response to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign the long-awaited Association Agreement with the European Union, is falsely portrayed as a "military coup."
"Medinsky has been monopolizing and controlling the process of writing curricula and school textbooks for 10 years."
Following the textbook's release, Medinsky and his co-author, Anatoly Torkunov, the head of the Russian Institute of International Relations were served notices of suspicion in absentia by Ukraine's Security Services. The two were accused of encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine, as well as justification and glorification of Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
"Medinsky has been monopolizing and controlling the process of writing curricula and school textbooks for 10 years," Zhukov said, adding that he is also in charge of school courses such as Russian military history.
"This is a person who is largely responsible in Russia for the ideological processing and indoctrination of children."
Lucas noted that Medinsky is ready to do any job the Kremlin assigns him, from working on textbooks to peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey.
"He (Medinsky) is almost a minister without a portfolio. He doesn't have a specific task (in the government), but he is a general person on hand to carry out (tasks), because he is a safe pair of hands for Putin," Lucas told the Kyiv Independent.
Since the full-scale invasion began, Medinsky has been on a new mission: to lead negotiations with Ukraine.
Medinsky's 'peace' efforts
Medinsky, born in the city of Smila in central Ukraine, claimed in an interview with RBC Russia in 2023 — after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine — that he had no hatred for Ukrainians and that Russia had no conflict with Ukraine.
Medinsky also claimed on his Telegram channel in March 2022, also after the start of the full-scale invasion, that Ukraine was allegedly preparing an offensive in Donbas, and that Russia's massacre of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha was staged by the Ukrainian government. Along with those statements, Medinsky claimed in that Russia wanted peace.
After it became known that Putin would not go to Istanbul, the Russian delegation eventually assembled a group of people that didn't include any top-level officials, including Medinsky. President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted, saying Moscow had dispatched a "sham delegation."
The previous meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian sides in Istanbul in 2022 ended in a deadlock, during which Moscow reportedly demanded that Kyiv leave Crimea under Russian occupation and abandon its aspirations to join NATO. History is now repeating itself, but with more vertiginous turns.
"Their PR will be: We are the ones who genuinely negotiated in 2022, and this is the man (Medinsky) who was part of that genuine negotiation," Lucas said. "And look! He's trying three years later to get the deal because it was Ukraine that walked away from them."
The expert added that, since the 2022 meetings, Russia has tried to portray itself in these talks as a willing negotiator and a victim of the West's bullying.
As in 2022, the talks in Istanbul on May 16 did not result in a ceasefire agreement.
Russia reportedly made "unrealistic" demands that go "far beyond anything ever discussed," according to Sky News. Some of these demands include the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from their own territory as a condition for a ceasefire, a Ukrainian diplomat told Sky News.
After the talks on May 16, Medinsky said the Russian delegation "was satisfied with the result and was ready to continue contacts," in an apparent attempt to shift responsibility for the next move to Ukraine and the West.
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