Moscow ignores Trump calls for Zelensky-Putin summit and hits out at security talks - Moscow demands to be directly engaged on questions of security concerning Ukraine and Europe

While Ankara may commit itself to sending troops as part of security guarantees, Russia's approval is more important than European plans

Talks on a free trade agreement between Turkey and Ukraine began in 2007. The deal was signed three weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, and Turkey ratified it in August 2024.

FILE PHOTO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov walks ahead of a joint press conference by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, following their meeting to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S., August 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File photo

For decades, Russia has been Armenia’s principal security guarantor, projecting power through its Gyumri military base, its border guards along the Turkish and Iranian frontiers and its role in brokering ceasefires in 1994,

The people of Turkey are well aware of the threats that Russia, in its imperial form of existence, may pose to the country. — Ukrinform.

For years, Donald Trump criticized presidents for empty threats. He often pointed to then-President Barack Obama failing to enforce his “red line” on Syria using chemical weapons. During his first term in 2017, Trump called it a “blank threat” that cost us “in many other parts of the world.”

Drones attack pumps and metering facility at the Transbalkan pipeline which is one of the four routes that Ukraine uses to import gas into the country

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held calls on Saturday with his Turkish and Hungarian counterparts, the Russian foreign ministry said, hours after a summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents yielded no deal on ending the war in Ukraine.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday pledged that American troops would not be on the ground in Ukraine — but provided little other insight into the scale of U.S. security guarantees as he pushes to end Russia’s war on its neighbor.