Russia and Ukraine traded blame on Thursday as negotiators were due to meet in Türkiye for the first direct peace talks in more than three years.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed Russia for sending a "dummy" delegation, as he touched down in Ankara for a meeting with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Russian officials, for their part, called Zelensky "pathetic" and a "clown".

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending, despite days of international pressure.

Instead, Russia's negotiating team, which touched down in Istanbul on Thursday morning, is led by a Kremlin aide.

"We need to understand the level of the Russian delegation and what their mandate is, if they are capable of making any decisions themselves," Zelenskyy said from the tarmac at Ankara airport.

"From what we see, it looks more like a dummy," he added.

US President Donald Trump said he was keeping open the possibility of travelling to Türkiye on Friday if there was any meaningful progress.

But the absence of Putin – as well as any top diplomats such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov or foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov – would seem to diminish the talks' importance or any possibility of a breakthrough.

Russia said the negotiations would take place in the "second half of the day", while Zelenskyy said he would decide on his approach only after he meets Erdogan.

Hundreds of journalists were gathered at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, where the talks are rumoured to be taking place, AFP reporters saw.

Tens of thousands have been killed since Russia-Ukraine conflict began in February 2022, and Russia now occupies about a fifth of Ukraine's territory.

'Pathetic'

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova hit back at Zelenskyy's criticism of Moscow's delegation almost immediately.

Speaking at a briefing in Moscow, she called him a "dummy", a "clown" and a "loser".

Lavrov called Zelenskyy "pathetic" for trying to persuade Putin to turn up in person.

"At first Zelenskyy made some kind of statements that demanded Putin come personally. Well, a pathetic person," he said in a televised address to diplomats in Moscow.

Trump, who has been pushing for a swift end to the three-year war, said he might go to Türkiye if he saw meaningful progress.

"You know, if something happened, I'd go on Friday," Trump said in Qatar.

Speaking at a NATO meeting in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was "impatient" and willing to consider "any mechanism" to achieve a lasting end to the war.

He is expected in Istanbul on Friday "for meetings with European counterparts to discuss the conflict in Ukraine", according to the US State Department said.

'Just' peace’

Putin himself made the surprise call for direct negotiations after Kiev and European leaders pressured him to agree to a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

Despite the flurry of diplomacy, Moscow and Kiev's positions remain far apart.

The Kremlin has named Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, as its top negotiator.

Medinsky led failed negotiations in 2022, in which Moscow made sweeping claims to Ukrainian territory and demanded restrictions on Kiev's military.

Russia also sent a deputy foreign minister, deputy defence minister and the head of its GRU military intelligence agency.

Zelenskyy said Kiev had sent a top-level delegation.

"Our delegation is at the highest level – the ministry of foreign affairs, the office of the president, the military, our intelligence agencies... in order to make any decisions that can lead to just peace," he said in Ankara.

Russia insists the talks address what it calls the "root causes" of the conflict, including a "denazification" and demilitarisation of Ukraine.

These terms that Moscow has used to justify its invasion are widely rejected in Kiev and the West.

It has also been repeated that Ukraine must cede territory occupied by Russian troops and pull out of some areas still under Ukrainian control.

Kiev wants an immediate 30-day ceasefire and says it will not recognise its territories as Russian.

But Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Ukraine might only get them back through diplomatic means.