•Russian President Vladimir Puti and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Ukraine and Russia agreed another large-scale prisoner exchange at talks in Istanbul today, but failed to make a breakthrough on an immediate halt to the fighting.
At the second round of direct talks between the warring sides, Ukraine said Moscow had rejected its call for an unconditional ceasefire, offering instead a partial truce of two to three days in some areas of the frontline, reports AFP.
Urged on by US President Donald Trump, Moscow and Kyiv have opened direct negotiations for the first time since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion, but have yet to make progress beyond prisoner exchanges and the agreement to swap their demands for a longer-term settlement.
Top negotiators from both sides confirmed they had reached a deal to swap all severely wounded soldiers as well as all captured fighters under the age of 25.
“We agreed to exchange all-for-all seriously wounded and seriously sick prisoners of war. The second category is young soldiers who are from 18 to 25 years old — all-for-all,” Ukraine’s lead negotiator and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told reporters in Istanbul.
Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said it would involve “at least 1,000” on each side — topping the 1,000-for-1,000 POW exchange agreed at talks last month.
But there was less sign of progress towards a truce.
“The Russian side continued to reject the motion of an unconditional ceasefire,” Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya told reporters after the talks.
Russia said it had offered a limited pause in fighting.
“We have proposed a specific ceasefire for two to three days in certain areas of the front line,” top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said, adding this was needed to collect bodies of dead soldiers from the battlefield.
No ‘reward’ for Putin
The two sides also agreed to hand over the bodies of 6,000 killed soldiers, Ukraine said after the talks.
But Russia’s Medinsky said Moscow would hand 6,000 killed Ukrainian soldiers over unilaterally, adding that he did not know “if they have any bodies on their side”, but that Russia would take them, if so.
Moscow does not disclose how many of its soldiers have been killed, closely guarding any information on the huge losses sustained during its three-year invasion.
As talks concluded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any deal must not “reward” Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“The key to lasting peace is clear, the aggressor must not receive any reward for war. Putin must get nothing that would justify his aggression,” Zelensky said at a press conference in Vilnius alongside several NATO leaders.
Russia handed Ukraine a document outlining its demands for both a peace and a full ceasefire, officials from both countries said after the talks.
Kyiv said it would study the proposals in the coming days.
Ukraine’s Umerov also called for a next meeting to take place before the end of June, saying the teams should discuss a possible summit between Putin and Zelensky.
Opening the talks at the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul — an Ottoman imperial house on the banks of the Bosphorus that is now a luxury five-star hotel — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the “eyes of the entire world” were watching.
Afterwards, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed hosting a meeting between Zelensky, Putin and Trump.
Moscow has made sweeping demands such as calling for Ukraine to cede territory it still controls, a ban on Kyiv joining NATO, limiting Ukraine’s military and ending Western military support.
Zelensky today again rejected those demands, with Kyiv and the West casting Russia’s assault as nothing but an imperialist land grab.
Tens of thousands have been killed since Russia invaded, with swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed and millions forced to flee their homes in Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.
Ukraine wants concrete Western-backed security guarantees — like NATO protections or troops on the ground — that have been ruled out by Russia.
‘No home’
In the front-line town of Dobropillya in eastern Ukraine, 53-year-old Volodymyr told our correspondent he had no hope left for an end to the conflict.
“We thought that everything would stop. And now there is nothing to wait for. We have no home, nothing. We were almost killed by drones,” he said.
After months of setbacks for Kyiv’s military, Ukraine said it had carried out an audacious attack on Sunday, smuggling drones into Russia and then firing them at airbases, damaging around 40 strategic Russian bombers worth $7 billion in a major special operation.
Russia’s military accelerated its advance in May, our analysis of Institute for the Study of War (ISW) data showed, after pushing Ukraine’s troops out of its western Kursk region.
