On Monday, June 2, the Ukrainian and Russian delegations met again in Istanbul for bilateral talks that many call “peace talks” but are in fact little more than a giant smokescreen. Russia once again demonstrated that it has no real interest in any kind of peace (nor even an unconditional ceasefire) unless its imperial ambitions are fully satisfied—100%. Moscow is counting on extracting even more in the future by continuing the war. Ukraine, of course, is interested in peace, but its battlefield situation and the geopolitical climate (Trump 2.0) do not exactly offer it strong negotiating leverage. And when faced with the choice between capitulation and continued defense, it (predictably) opts for the latter, taking part in this negotiating theater only to show the West that it is not the one obstructing the process.
For the indecisive European political mainstream, this situation is actually somewhat convenient: it provides political breathing room and space for empty slogans like, “We welcome the bilateral talks” or “We expect hostilities to cease and we are working for peace”—all without having to assume a more decisive political or military role. We’ve seen this many times before, not only in Ukraine; the genocide in Gaza is an even starker reflection of how much room there is for this kind of political hypocrisy. In short: a lot. Too much.
But what does Vladimir Medinski (b. 1970) have to do with all this, and why does he even deserve attention? He is the man at the very center of this negotiating theater: not only did Putin appoint him as head of the Russian delegation in May 2025 (in this latest attempt), but it is the same Medinski who led the Russian delegation in the failed negotiations back in spring 2022. The international public had almost forgotten that episode, and so many were surprised when news came out of Moscow that, instead of Putin himself (which, let’s not forget, was also Trump’s great wish), Russia would be represented at the May 16 talks this year by Medinski. “Who is Mr. Medinski?” For much of the world, he may indeed be unknown, but not so for the better-informed ex-Soviet audience.
Vladimir Medinski currently serves as an aide to the Russian president (since 2020) and as chairman of the Russian Writers’ Union. Before that, he spent eight years as Minister of Culture (2012–2020) and was a State Duma deputy (2004–2011). He holds two doctorates, in political science and history, and is the author of numerous books on Russian history. Many of these were heavily subsidized by state and para-state advertising funds, became bestsellers, and some were even adapted for the screen. At first glance, it looks like a stellar career of an intellectual/writer/academic/politician whose talents were recognized and utilized by Russia’s political elite. Meritocracy at work, one might say: a serious state appointing serious people to serious positions.
Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, reinforced this Kremlin narrative when she said that “Russia will be represented [at the talks] by a person with an academic title in history.” Presumably, this was meant to mask Russia’s true aim in these talks (stalling), which was already evident from the wholly inadequate level of the Russian delegation that traveled to Turkey. Let’s recall: Ukrainian President Zelensky was in Istanbul as well.
But there is another, less flattering interpretation of Medinski’s career—not only his political one but also his academic and literary work. According to this view, Medinski is a “writer” and “scholar” only in quotation marks. His academic works are pure plagiarism, his doctorates therefore invalid, and his history books so riddled with fiction that they ought to be shelved in a completely different section of the bookstore—if sold at all, as many genuine Russian historians and writers would remark. Far from a true intellectual/politician/academic, he is just another loyal Kremlin ideologue-apparatchik, whose main skill is correctly reading the wishes of the leadership in time. He recognizes the “spirit of the times” and translates it into initiatives, actions, and words that please the Kremlin hierarchy. He writes and speaks exactly as Putin expects.
And since Putin, in his political-historical essays full of inaccuracies and falsehoods, describes Russia exclusively as a victorious civilization, a true bearer of traditional values whose “borders end nowhere,” then for greater “authenticity” of such history, certain events simply have to be invented. Medinski has been doing precisely that for more than a decade. He is remarkably effective at it, and that much must be acknowledged. This is why Putin holds him in high regard and why he prospers politically. It is also why he was appointed head of the negotiating team with Ukraine: so he could invent new demands on the fly, set ultimatums, provide “specific” interpretations of historical events, and use them as parallels for the current war in Ukraine—or simply manipulate quotations. After the first round of May talks, for instance, he publicly claimed: “As Bismarck once said, never try to deceive or steal from the Russians, because time will pass and sooner or later the Russians will always come back for what is theirs.” But Bismarck never said this, and no historically reliable evidence supports such a claim—as even Russian historiography admits. But never mind: for Medinski, anything that serves the goal is not only acceptable but desirable and permitted.
Nor does he even try to hide or camouflage his “professional” and “academic” lies. When asked about the tale of the “28 Panfilov Guardsmen”—a group of supposed Red Army heroes who died defending Moscow from the Nazis in 1941, long held up as a textbook example of courage and self-sacrifice, but in fact a fabricated myth—Medinski, who cites it as historical fact, replied candidly: “It doesn’t matter if it didn’t really happen. What matters is that it should have and could have happened.” For Medinski, objective historical facts do not exist; historical documents may be interpreted in line with national interests.
No wonder that even Russia’s academic historians could not entirely turn a blind eye to such “scholarly” achievements, regardless of his ministerial status. In 2016, 24 historians, all members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published an open letter calling for the revocation of his doctorate. They wrote that Medinski “shows contempt for historical facts and replaces them with myths that fit his own notion of national interests. […] It is clear that works based on such principles do not fall within the scope of science, and if they claim to, then we are talking about pseudoscience.” The process of stripping him of his doctorate in history actually advanced quite far—despite political pressure—because the arguments of plagiarism and outright fabrication were so strong that even Kremlin influence did not always suffice. In the end, however, the Ministry of Education would have had to make the final decision, and that is where the matter quietly disappeared.
The incompetence of Trump’s close associates and administration members has been well documented and heavily criticized by the public—not only in the U.S. and Europe but elsewhere too. There is no need to waste many words on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a die-hard conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer, and now health secretary. Or on Steve Witkoff, Trump’s chief negotiator on peace in Gaza and Ukraine, who may know real estate but knows very little about international politics, diplomacy, or complex interstate negotiations. Then there is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose military service and Fox News career do not necessarily qualify him to lead the Pentagon. And there are many, many others.
But this is Trump 2.0, and nobody expects anything less extravagant from him than such appointments. “That’s just who he is,” many will shrug. But Russia—oh, that’s different. That is a serious, powerful state. An orderly state, where discipline rules. A state without political clowns like the ones just mentioned. Instead, it has Medinski. For a reason.