Putin discussed Ukraine talks with Russia's most senior officials

MOSCOW, May 15 (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