Russia and Ukraine to talk about peace but are still far apart
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Tom Balmforth
ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Russian and Ukrainian officials are due to sit down on Monday in the Turkish city of Istanbul for their second round of direct peace talks since 2022, but the two sides are still far apart on how to end the war and the fighting is stepping up.
U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace, but so far they have not and the White House has repeatedly warned the United States will "walk away" from the war if the two sides are too stubborn to reach a peace deal.
The first round of talks on May 16 yielded the biggest prisoner swap of the war but no sign of peace - or even a ceasefire as both sides merely set out their own opening negotiating positions.
After keeping the world guessing on whether Ukraine would even turn up for the second round, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Defence Minister Rustem Umerov would meet with Russian officials in Istanbul.
The Russian delegation will be headed by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, who after the first round invoked French general and statesman Napoleon Bonaparte to assert that war and negotiations should always be conducted at the same time.
On Sunday, Ukraine launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war, targeting Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and other military bases, while the Kremlin launched 472 drones at Ukraine, Ukraine's air force said, the highest nightly total of the war.
The idea of direct talks was first proposed by President Vladimir Putin after Ukraine and European powers demanded that he agree to a ceasefire which the Kremlin dismissed.
Putin said Russia would draft a memorandum setting out the broad contours of a possible peace accord and only then discuss a ceasefire.
Kyiv said over the weekend it was still waiting for draft memorandum from the Russian side.
Medinsky, the lead Kremlin negotiator, said on Sunday that Moscow had received a Ukraine's draft memorandum and told Russia's RIA news agency the Kremlin would react to it on Monday.
According to Trump envoy Keith Kellogg, the two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, though it is clear that after three years of war Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart.
Kellogg has indicated that the U.S. will be involved in the talks and that even representatives from Britain, France and Germany will be too, though it was not clear at what level the United States would be represented.
Ukraine's delegation will also include its deputy foreign minister, as well as several military and intelligence officials, according to an executive order by Zelenskiy on Sunday.
In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.
Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.
According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine's military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations for Ukraine.
The document also stated that the current location of the front line will be the starting point for negotiations about territory.
Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100 square km, about the same size as the U.S. state of Ohio.
Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022.
Trump has called Putin "crazy" and berated Zelenskiy in public in the Oval Office, but the U.S. president has also said that he thinks peace is achievable and that if Putin delays then he could impose tough sanctions on Russia.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Jane Merriman and Lincoln Feast.)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Miami Herald
9 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
‘Russia's Pearl Harbor' Fuels Fears Over Chinese Cargo Ships at US Ports
Sunday's Ukrainian drone ambush on a Russian airbase more than 3,000 miles from the front lines has intensified a growing debate among U.S. military analysts over the plausibility of a similar attack launched from Chinese merchant vessels docked at American ports. The scenario has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and security analysts alike following confirmation that COSCO Shipping-China's state-owned shipping giant-operates across key U.S. ports, despite being designated by the Department of Defense as a Chinese military company. At issue is whether drones or cruise missiles could be hidden in shipping containers aboard these vessels, activated remotely or after offloading, and used in a preemptive strike. "This is a very plausible form of attack in the U.S.," said Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former U.S. Navy officer. "But the attack would need to overcome several challenges," he told Newsweek. "The drones need to get out of the container, and that's hard to control aboard a ship. A more feasible approach would be to deploy the drones from a container once it's offloaded and moved on a truck." Retired Navy commander Thomas Shugart, now a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, has voiced a more urgent warning. "It is becoming borderline-insane that we routinely allow ships owned and operated by DoD-designated Chinese military companies to sit in our ports with thousands of containers onboard and under their control," Shugart said in a conversation with Newsweek. Shugart said the concept isn't speculative-it mirrors Chinese military writings. "Their Science of Campaigns is full of references to 'sudden' and 'surprise' strikes," he said, referring to a core text that Chinese military officers are expected to study. "They explicitly discuss hitting first, especially against what they call the 'powerful entity,' which is clearly a reference to the United States." The concerns are not just theoretical. In January, members of the House Committee on Homeland Security asked the U.S. Coast Guard for a classified briefing, citing COSCO's access to "major U.S. ports" and warning of risks including "espionage, cyber intrusions, sabotage, and supply chain disruptions," according to a letter sent in January. Zak Kallenborn, a researcher of drone and asymmetric warfare, acknowledged the technical possibility but questioned the timing. "A similar Chinese drone attack is definitely plausible and worth worrying about," he told Newsweek. "However, a Chinese attack is unlikely to come completely out of the blue. If China were to do this, we'd likely already be at war." Still, the lessons from Ukraine's recent drone strike on Russian airfields linger heavily in the minds of U.S. analysts and war planners grappling with the warp-speed progress of battlefield technological advancements like drone warfare. The operation on Sunday exposed how even hardened military targets can be neutralized by low-cost drones-deep inside a nuclear-armed adversary's territory where an enemy's conventional air power would be difficult to penetrate. For some of these experts, it raised uncomfortable parallels to U.S. vulnerabilities. Shugart said the U.S. shouldn't assume distance offers safety. "We've hardened some overseas air bases," he said. "But we still park billion-dollar aircraft in the open on our own soil. That's a risk." According to a March report from the Atlantic Council, China has developed and demonstrated containerized missile and drone platforms that can be covertly transported aboard commercial vessels. The report warned these systems could enable Beijing to establish "a covert way to establish anti-access/area denial nodes near major maritime choke points." Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb demonstrated how swarms of inexpensive, off-the-shelf drones-slightly modified to carry explosives and smuggled in wooden containers to be deployed remotely-can inflict billions of dollars in damage on strategic military assets, including long-range bombers. The contrast has fueled criticism of more traditional defense approaches, such as President Donald Trump's proposed "Golden Dome" missile shield, which analysts say may be poorly matched to emerging low-cost threats. The regulatory environment surrounding drones is also a major factor in the growing risk, experts say. "We don't have a drone transportation and logistics system," military theorist John Robb wrote on X. "The FAA strangled it in the crib a decade ago. If the FCC had regulated the internet the way we've handled drones, we'd still be using AOL." Robb advocates for a national drone framework with built-in security measures: "Monitoring, kill switches, no-fly zones, hardware and software rules, maintenance requirements, and corporate certification." In Congress, lawmakers continue to press the Coast Guard to ensure more stringent vetting of foreign vessels, crew members and cargo. "The vetting process must be consistent and comprehensive across all U.S. ports," the Homeland Security Committee wrote in its January request. The committee also raised concerns about Chinese political officers allegedly embedded aboard COSCO vessels, which it argued underscores direct Chinese Communist Party influence over ostensibly commercial operations. For analysts like Clark, the technology is only part of the equation. The more pressing concern is readiness. "If China believes it can use relatively small drones to cause major damage, and we've done nothing to detect or deter it, that's a vulnerability we can't afford to ignore," he said. Related Articles Putin Ally Says Ukraine Operation 'Grounds for Nuclear Attack'Are the Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks Going Anywhere? | OpinionSteve Bannon Says Lindsey Graham Should Be Arrested Over Ukraine SupportWhat 'Russia's Pearl Harbor' Says About Trump's Golden Dome 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Two suspected Uganda rebels killed in Kampala blast, officials say
STORY: An explosion in the Ugandan capital has killed two suspected rebels including a female suicide bomber. The blast happened near a Roman Catholic shrine in the south of Kampala and authorities say no other people were hurt. According to local media, it took place as people were gathering for Martyrs' Day celebrations. The day commemorates Christians who were killed for their faith in the 19th century. Ugandan Police Commissioner Anatoli Muleterwa said heightened intelligence and surveillance had prevented the attack. "Our deployment was too high, the surveillance was too high. They thought they were going to get any advantage of fulfilling their mission, only to be put out of action by our security." He added that teams were now working to determine the type of explosives used and possible motives Ugandan army spokesperson Chris Magezi [ma-gay-zee] told Reuters that the attackers were thought to be linked to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Congo-based rebel group affiliated with Islamic State. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility.
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pornhub pulls out of France over age verification law
Aylo, the company which runs a number of pornographic websites, including Pornhub, is to stop operating in France from Wednesday. It is in reaction to a French law requiring porn sites to take extra steps to verify their users' ages. An Aylo spokesperson said the law was a privacy risk and assessing people's ages should be done at a device level. Pornhub is the most visited porn site in the world - with France its second biggest market, after the US. Aylo - and other providers of sexually explicit material - find themselves under increasing regulatory pressure worldwide. The EU recently announced an investigation into whether Pornhub and other sites were doing enough to protect children. Aylo has also pulled out of a number of US states, again over the issue of checking the ages of its users. All sites offering sexually explicit material in the UK will soon also have to offer more robust "age assurance." Aylo, formerly Mindgeek, also runs sites such as Youporn and RedTube, which will also become unavailable to French customers. It is owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. Their vice president for compliance, Solomon Friedman, called the French law "dangerous," "potentially privacy-infringing" and "ineffective". "Google, Apple and Microsoft all have the capability built into their operating system to verify the age of the user at the operating system or device level," he said on a video call reported by Agence France-Presse. Another executive, Alex Kekesi, said the company was pro-age verification, but there were concerns over the privacy of users. In some cases, users may have to enter credit cards or government ID details in order to prove their age. French minister for gender equality, Aurore Bergé, wrote "au revoir" in response to the news that Pornhub was pulling out of France. In a post on X [in French], she wrote: "There will be less violent, degrading and humiliating content accessible to minors in France." How can you keep your child safe online? The UK has its own age verification law, with platforms required to have "robust" age checks by July, according to media regulator Ofcom. These may include facial detection software which estimates a user's age. In April - in response to messaging platform Discord testing face scanning software - experts predicted it would be "the start of a bigger shift" in age checks in the UK, in which facial recognition tech played a bigger role. BBC News has asked Aylo whether it will block its sites in the UK too when the laws come in. In May, Ofcom announced it was investigating two pornography websites which had failed to detail how they were preventing children from accessing their platforms. Two porn sites investigated for suspected age check failings Pornhub and three other porn sites face EU child safety probe Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift' Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
