Putin discussed Ukraine talks with Russia's most senior officials

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin held a late night meeting with some of Russia's most powerful officials to discuss the upcoming peace talks with Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

Putin sent a Kremlin aide, deputy ministers and a military intelligence chief to hold peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey on Thursday, spurning Kyiv's challenge to go there in person to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Putin was shown opening Kremlin meeting "to prepare for the upcoming negotiations with the Ukrainian side".

Key members of the delegation to the talks attended, including Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Igor Kostyukov, director of Russian military intelligence, and Alexander Fomin, deputy defence minister.

Also in attendance were:

* Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu

* First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov

* Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov

* Defence Minister Andrei Belousov

* Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

* Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov

* SVR Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin

* National Guard Director Viktor Zolotov

* Chief of Russia's general staff, Valery Gerasimov

* Senior Russian commanders fighting in the war

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Ros Russell)

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