Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrives in Moscow on Tuesday for a two-day visit that will test the Kremlin’s willingness to re-engage with peace initiatives over Ukraine. Fidan is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and the secretary of the Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, but the diplomatic centrepiece is an anticipated audience with President Vladimir Putin. Turkish officials say Fidan will reiterate Ankara’s longstanding offer to host negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, a proposal Kyiv endorsed at the leaders’ level in April. The trip, coming just weeks before Turkey welcomes NATO heads of state for a summit in July, underscores Ankara’s singular, if precarious, role as the alliance’s primary interlocutor with Moscow.

Viewed from Ankara, the mission extends Turkey’s delicate balancing act since the full-scale invasion. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has maintained cordial ties with both Moscow and Kyiv, brokering the 2022 Black Sea grain initiative and facilitating prisoner exchanges. With that grain deal now collapsed and maritime tensions rising, Fidan will warn against further escalation in the Black Sea, where Russian and Ukrainian forces have increasingly threatened commercial shipping. The talks will also address security in the South Caucasus, a region where Turkish and Russian interests intersect, often contentiously, following Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh.

From Moscow’s perspective, the visit offers a chance to project diplomatic openness without committing to concessions, while potentially exploiting divisions between Turkey and its NATO allies. Western capitals, particularly Washington, view Ankara’s mediation with a mixture of scepticism and quiet encouragement: any channel to de-escalation is welcome, but Turkey’s own defence ties to Russia, including the S-400 missile system, complicate alliance messaging. Kyiv, for its part, has actively sought Turkish help to secure safe passage for grain exports and to bring Russia to the table, though officials remain wary of Moscow’s sincerity.

Whether the Kremlin will entertain a meaningful dialogue remains uncertain. Putin has publicly dismissed talks while Ukraine is on the offensive, but behind closed doors the calculus may shift as the war’s economic toll mounts. For Turkey, the visit is also a prelude to the NATO summit: Erdoğan will want to demonstrate to allies that Ankara is using its access to Moscow constructively, even as he faces pressure to greenlight Sweden’s membership bid. The Black Sea security discussions could yield more tangible results, perhaps a revived mechanism to protect commercial shipping, but any broader peace framework will likely require far more than a single round of shuttle diplomacy.