Russia and Ukraine agree on prisoner swap and handover of bodies
Russia and Ukraine have agreed a large-scale transfer of prisoners and fallen soldiers following a second round of peace negotiations hosted by Turkey, but Moscow dismissed a demand from Kyiv to hand over 'stolen' Ukrainian children. Delegates from the warring nations met in Istanbul again today, less than a month after their first round of direct negotiations ended within two hours.
Today's talks were over in even shorter order. Only an hour had passed when the negotiators emerged, though not before they managed to agree a major exchange of dead and detained personnel. Under the terms of the agreement, some 6,000 bodies of fighters from each side killed in action will be handed over for burial.
At least 1,000 prisoners of war on each side will be exchanged along with all soldiers under the age of 25 and those who suffered serious injuries in combat, Ukraine's lead negotiator and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told reporters in Istanbul. Despite the positive outcome on prisoner transfers, the negotiations appeared to yield no progress toward the full and unconditional ceasefire desired by Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said their Russian counterparts only offered partial two-to-three-day ceasefires at certain points of the frontline to allow for the recovery of those killed in action.
Ukraine's state centre for strategic communications, Spravdi, said Russia was only present at the talks to avoid further sanctions from the United States, whose President Donald Trump has expressed frustration with the slow pace of negotiations . Russia's lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky in turn dismissed a Ukrainian request for Moscow to return children forcibly relocated from the occupied regions into Russia.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants in March 2023 for Vladimir Putin and Russia's children's ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova on war crimes charges related to the abduction of Ukrainian children. 'Don't put on a show for bleeding-heart European old ladies with no children of their own,' Medinsky is said to have claimed during the talks after he was presented with an official list of 339 children Kyiv claims have been abducted by Russian authorities. There were doubts today's proceedings would return any progress toward a proper ceasefire even before talks got underway in Istanbul.
While Ukraine presented their negotiating papers and requests to the Russian side one week in advance of the talks, Moscow's representatives only gave their terms today, leaving Kyiv's negotiators with no time to study them. The meeting in Istanbul also came just one day after Ukraine's SBU security service pulled off a breathtakingly coordinated operation that saw a swarm of kamikaze drones demolish dozens of Russian military planes thousands of miles from Ukrainian soil.
The stunning attack - reportedly more than 18 months in the making - represents a glaring intelligence failure on the part of Russia's security apparatus and has been lauded as a great success by Zelensky. That followed one of the largest single-day drone and missile attacks on Ukraine by Russia of the war so far.
Yet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the progress made during today's talks was superb and expressed a desire to host a face-to-face summit between Zelensky , Putin and Trump in the near future. 'My greatest wish for both sides is to bring both Vladimir Putin and Zelensky together in Istanbul or Ankara, and even to bring Mr Trump to their side, if they accept,' he said. Many analysts doubt that Putin has any interest in meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart and have predicted that ceasefire talks between Kyiv and Moscow will go round in circles unless Washington steps up to play a more significant role.
Zelensky himself said that 'if Russia turns the Istanbul meeting into an empty talk, there must be a new level of pressure, new sanctions, and not just from Europe,' in an apparent reference to US threats to further penalise Russia. 'Without pressure, Putin will just keep playing games with everyone who wants this war to end,' he said. The relentless fighting has frustrated 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!' but offered no further details.
Ukraine's Umerov told reporters in Istanbul that officials in Kyiv would need a week to review the Russian document setting out fresh ceasefire proposals before deciding on a response. The Ukrainian delegation offered to enter a third round of talks on a date between June 20 and June 30, but Russia is yet to respond. In the meantime, Putin and his military officials are likely to be plotting revenge for Ukraine's so-called 'Operation Spiderweb' that Kyiv claims damaged or destroyed up to one-third of the aircraft used to deliver cruise missile strikes on Ukraine.
Because Sunday's drones were launched from trucks close to the bases in five Russian regions, military defences had virtually no time to prepare for them. The attack was so devastating that Russian military bloggers termed the operation 'Russia's Pearl Harbor'. The attacks were 'a big blow to Russian strategic air power' and exposed significant vulnerabilities in Moscow's military capabilities, said Phillips O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
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