Zelensky says a new release of prisoners is in the works after Istanbul meeting, despite no peace talk progress with Russia

LeMonde

2 days ago

Representatives of Russia and Ukraine met Monday, June 2, for their second round of direct peace talks in just over two weeks, but aside from agreeing to swap thousands of their dead and seriously wounded troops, they made no progress toward ending the 3-year-old war, officials said. The talks unfolded a day after a string of stunning long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a devastating drone assault on Russian air bases and Russia hurling its largest drone attack of the war against Ukraine.
At the negotiating table, Russia presented a memorandum setting out the Kremlin's terms for ending hostilities, the Ukrainian delegation said. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, told reporters that Kyiv officials would need a week to review the document and decide on a response. Ukraine proposed further talks on a date between June 20 and June 30, he said.
In other steps, the delegations agreed to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action and to set up a commission to exchange seriously wounded troops.
Meanwhile, Kyiv officials said their surprise drone attack Sunday damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia, including the remote Arctic, Siberian and Far East regions more than 7,000 kilometers (4,300 miles) from Ukraine. The complex and unprecedented raid, which struck simultaneously in three time zones, took over a year and a half to prepare and was "a major slap in the face for Russia's military power," said Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the Ukrainian security service, who led its planning.
'A brilliant operation'
Zelensky called it a "brilliant operation" that would go down in history. The effort destroyed or heavily damaged nearly a third of Moscow's strategic bomber fleet, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia on Sunday fired the biggest number of drones – 472 – at Ukraine since its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine's air force said, in an apparent effort to overwhelm air defenses. That was part of a recently escalating campaign of strikes in civilian areas of Ukraine.
US-led efforts to push the two sides into accepting a ceasefire have so far failed. Ukraine accepted the proposed truce, but the Kremlin effectively rejected it. Recent comments by senior officials in both countries indicate they remain far apart on the key conditions for stopping the war. The previous talks on May 16 in the same Turkish city were the first direct peace negotiations since the early weeks of Moscow's 2022 invasion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the fact that the two sides met again Monday was an achievement in itself amid the fierce fighting.
"The fact that the meeting took place despite yesterday's incident is an important success in itself," he said in a televised speech.
Zelensky said during a trip to Lithuania on Monday that a new release of prisoners of war was being prepared after the Istanbul meeting. The May 16 talks also led to a swap of prisoners, with 1,000 on both sides being exchanged. During the talks, Zelensky said, the Ukrainian delegation handed over a list of nearly 400 abducted children. Russia responded by proposing to "work on up to 10 children."
"That's their idea of addressing humanitarian issues," Zelensky said Monday during an online briefing with journalists.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in 2023 for Putin and the country's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of abducting children from Ukraine. The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, said Kyiv had made a "show" out of the topic and that children would be returned if their parents or guardians could be located.
'I think they're idiots'
Zelensky also told journalists that the Russian side said it was ready for a two- to three-day ceasefire to collect bodies from the battlefield, not a full ceasefire.
"I think they're idiots, because the whole point of a ceasefire is to prevent people from being killed in the first place. So you can see their mindset — it's just a brief pause in the war for them," he added.
The relentless fighting has frustrated US President Donald Trump's goal of bringing about a quick end to the war. A week ago, he expressed impatience with Putin as Moscow pounded Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles for a third straight night. Trump said on social media that Putin "has gone absolutely CRAZY!"
Ukraine was triumphant after targeting the distant Russian air bases. The official Russian response was muted, with the attack getting little coverage on state-controlled television. The Russia-1 television channel on Sunday evening spent a little over a minute on it with a brief Defense Ministry statement read out before images shifted to Russian drone strikes on Ukrainian positions.
Zelensky said the setbacks for the Kremlin would help force it to the negotiating table, even as its pursues a summer offensive on the battlefield.
"Russia must feel what its losses mean," Zelensky continued on Monday from Lithuania. "That is what will push it toward diplomacy."