Hopes fade for Russia-Ukraine peace talks without Putin's conditions

Times

2 days ago

Prospects for progress at a second round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Turkey on Monday are looking slim after President Zelensky accused Moscow of failing to take them seriously.
Delegates from the two warring states are due to meet in Istanbul to discuss a potential ceasefire that would halt their three-year fight, instigated by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
However, Zelensky, Ukraine's leader, said in his evening address on Saturday that Kyiv had no clarity on Russia's position as Moscow had not fulfilled an agreement to hand over a memorandum outlining its conditions before the talks.
'We don't have it, Turkey doesn't have it, the United States doesn't have it, and neither do our other partners,' Zelensky said. 'At this point, it looks far from serious.'
Zelensky added that rather than stepping down a road to peace, Russia was intensifying its assaults on Ukrainian territory. He urged the United States to adopt new sanctions on Moscow 'to help bring peace closer'.
On Sunday, Zelensky said that Kyiv's chief demands in Istanbul would be a ceasefire, the release of more prisoners and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia. He repeated his call for a personal summit with Putin and other leaders.
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Russia and Ukraine held their first direct talks since 2022 in Istanbul on May 16 and agreed a '1,000 for 1,000' prisoner swap — completed last weekend — as well as pledging to produce memos on their demands for a ceasefire, and continue talks.
Rustem Umerov, Ukraine's defence minister, said that Kyiv had already passed Moscow its own memo, urging Russia to follow suit and 'stop efforts to make the meeting destructive'.
'The Russians' fear of sending their 'memorandum' to Ukraine suggests that it is likely filled with unrealistic ultimatums, and they are afraid of revealing that they are stalling the peace process,' Ukraine's foreign ministry added.
In response, the Kremlin said that it was Russia that had proposed the new talks in Turkey and that Kyiv is 'demanding something immediately is not constructive'.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said Moscow's delegation would present its memorandum at the negotiating table in Istanbul and 'provide the necessary clarifications'.
Over the weekend, President Trump's special envoy, Keith Kellogg, renewed the criticism of Moscow for failing to supply a draft to the US in advance.
'We cannot get the Russians' conditions,' he told Fox News. 'We still haven't gotten them. They promised Trump, Putin promised that he would have it in a week. A week later, they didn't show up.'
Meanwhile, President Putin's agenda for ending the war includes a written pledge by Nato not to accept more Eastern European members, lifting of some sanctions, and Ukraine's neutral status, the Reuters news agency reported.
Several Nato staffers and diplomats familiar with the talks told Radio Free Europe that there are no active discussions in the alliance about Moscow's demand for a written commitment not to expand further to the east, suggesting Putin's proposal would be given short shrift.
Kellogg, however, said that Moscow's concern over Nato enlargement is 'fair' and Ukraine's accession to the alliance is 'not on the table'.