'Artificial diplomacy': Zelensky, Putin trade accusations of bringing false pretexts to peace talks
On Monday, delegations from Ukraine and Russia met for a second round of talks in Istanbul aimed at breaking the deadlock on ending the war. Both sides exchanged memorandums setting out their conditions for a ceasefire. The meeting lasted just over an hour and no progress was made toward ending hostilities.
Instead, the two sides agreed only to swap thousands of their dead and seriously wounded troops, and a new prisoner exchange.
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Speaking at a media briefing in Kyiv, Zelensky said the talks in Istanbul had differed little from the first meeting on May 16, and accused Russia of staging 'a political performance' and deploying 'artificial diplomacy' in a bid to stall for time, delay sanctions and convince the United States that Russia is engaged in dialogue.
'The same ultimatums they voiced back then – now they just put them on paper ... Honestly, this document looks like spam. It's spam meant to flood us and create the impression that they're doing something,' Zelensky said in his first reaction to the Russian document.
The Ukrainian leader said that he sees little value in continuing talks at the current level of delegations and instead called for direct talks with Putin, possibly also including US President Donald Trump. The US has led a recent diplomatic push to stop the full-scale invasion, which began on February 24, 2022.
'We are proposing … a ceasefire before a leaders' summit,' with the US acting as a mediator, Zelensky said.
He said Ukraine is ready to meet at any time from next Monday at a venue such as Istanbul, the Vatican or Switzerland.
Ceasefire would 'reward' Ukraine
Putin, meanwhile, on Wednesday told a government meeting that Kyiv was behind the 'terrorist' attacks on bridges in Russia's border regions over the weekend, including one that caused a train to derail, killing seven people.
That attack – which Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for – was 'directed at thwarting the negotiation process', he said.
Instead of agreeing to the 30-day truce Ukraine has been pushing for, he said Russia had proposed a short two-three day ceasefire to allow both sides to collect bodies of dead soldiers from the battlefield, but that Ukraine had rejected that idea.
A longer ceasefire, he said, would only be used by Ukraine to rearm.
'Why reward them by giving them a break from the combat, which will be used to pump the regime with Western arms to continue their forced mobilisation and to prepare different terrorist acts?,' Putin said.
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