A hard-line aide to the Russian president will instead lead the delegation, according to a Kremlin statement.
Russia on Wednesday released a list of officials who will attend peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey. But a key person was missing: President Vladimir V. Putin.
The absence on the list of the Russian leader, who ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that began the war, was a strong indication that Mr. Putin would not come face to face this week with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has called him a murderer. The Kremlin said Mr. Putin himself had signed off on the delegation.
President Trump, who began pushing for peace talks before he took back the White House, had said he would consider joining the meeting in Turkey.
“I was thinking about actually flying over there,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a White House news conference on Monday.
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