Latest news with #UkraineRussiaTalks
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ukraine and Russia agree on further prisoner swap after brief talks
Ukraine and Russia have agreed to another prisoner exchange during negotiations in Istanbul while making little other headway. Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told journalists that the first priority was to exchange seriously injured and seriously ill prisoners of war. The second category would be young soldiers between the ages of 18 and 25. The agreement, he said, had been reached on specific categories and "not on numbers." The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, confirmed the agreement on the exchange of prisoners in the categories mentioned. He said the aim is to exchange at least 1,000 prisoners of war in each group. In addition, according to both sides, an agreement was also reached on the exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action. Umerov said Kiev had proposed the end of June to the Russians as the next date for follow-up talks. Ukraine also reiterated its call for a meeting at the highest level. "All key issues can only be resolved at the top leadership level," Umerov said, adding that US President Donald Trump's participation was also possible. The proposals for the desired ceasefire had been handed over, he said. The Russian document was currently being evaluated, said Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi. Ukraine has been fighting a Russian invasion with Western support for over three years. Second round of talks was brief Monday's talks - the second recent round of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine - were brief, running only a little over an hour. The delegations met in Çırağan Palace in Istanbul, with Turkish officials acting as mediators. Prior to the talks, the warring parties outlined their demands for an end to the fighting in written proposals, but their positions remain far apart. The two countries met for the first round of direct talks since 2022 in mid-May, which resulted in the largest prisoner exchange since the beginning of the war, with 1,000 detainees released on each side. The Russian delegation in Istanbul was again led by presidential adviser Medinsky, and the Ukrainian one by Defence Minister Umerov. The talks were intended to discuss ways out of Russia's three-year war against Ukraine. Kiev had demanded an unconditional 30-day ceasefire as a first step; Moscow had tied a ceasefire to conditions that included Western states refraining from supplying weapons to Ukraine. In the days before the meeting, the two sides massively expanded their attacks, resulting in casualties and damage in both countries. Ukraine on Sunday carried out one of its most ambitious attacks on Russian territory, hitting several airfields with remote combat drones. List of 'abducted' children During the second round of negotiations, Ukraine handed Russia a list of minors it considers to have been abducted. "We are talking about hundreds of children whom Russia illegally deported, forcibly resettled or detained in the temporarily occupied territories," wrote Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, on Telegram on Monday. The return of these children is part of a just and stable peace. "Now the ball is in Russia's court," he continued. Von derLeyen calls for new sanctions if Ukraine talks falter Meanwhile, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Europe is prepared to impose new sanctions on Russia if peace negotiations do not advance. She told German broadcaster ZDF on Monday that if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not take the talks seriously, the EU will go ahead with more sanctions against Russian targets, including the Nord Stream gas pipelines and the Russian shadow fleet. Von der Leyen added that she had spoken with US Senator Lindsey Graham, who is preparing another package of sanctions for the US Senate. The EU recently put its 17th package of sanctions against Russia into effect. An 18th package is already in the works, aimed in part at preventing the restart of the Nord Stream pipelines. Additional measures include further lowering the price cap on Russian oil and new sanctions targeting the Russian financial sector. Russia unveils peace demands for Ukraine Russia has for the first time publicly released a 12-point memorandum outlining its conditions for a peace settlement with Ukraine, state news agency TASS reported on Monday. The document calls for Ukraine to recognize the annexation of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya as part of Russia — a demand Kiev rejects as illegal. It also insists Ukraine adopts a permanently neutral status and abandons any future aspirations to join NATO. Other conditions include Ukraine remaining free of nuclear weapons, reducing the size of its armed forces and disbanding both nationalist military groups and the National Guard. The Kremlin also demands that Russian be recognized as an official language and that the rights of Russian-speaking minorities be guaranteed. Further requirements include lifting sanctions against Russia, restoring diplomatic relations and resuming the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe. The memorandum proposes that any peace treaty be formalized through a legally binding UN Security Council resolution. The document was handed over to Ukrainian representatives in Istanbul. Ukraine said it would review the proposal. Russia proposes two ceasefire options According to Russian state media citing the Russian delegation's documents, Moscow also offered two ceasefire options during negotiations in Istanbul. The first option requires Ukraine's full withdrawal from the four annexed regions — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson — despite Russia controlling only parts of them. Russian forces control nearly all of Luhansk, about 70% of Donetsk and roughly two-thirds of both Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions. However, the regional capitals — Kherson and Zaporizhzhya — remain under Ukrainian control. The second option calls for a ceasefire along the current front lines. Under the plan, Kiev would end mobilization efforts and stop receiving foreign weapons. A joint monitoring centre would be established to oversee compliance. Ukraine would also pledge to stop sabotage operations on Russian territory. Once martial law is lifted, nationwide elections would be held within 100 days, according to the proposal. Ukrainian officials also presented their own memorandum during the Istanbul talks, but the two sides remain far apart on core issues.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Turkish news agency reveals time and place of Ukraine-Russia talks in Istanbul
The Ukrainian and Russian delegations are scheduled to meet for talks in Istanbul at 13:00 on Monday 2 June. Source: Turkish news agency Anadolu, citing diplomatic sources, as reported by European Pravda Details: The Turkish side has determined the venue for the talks between the delegations. Sources told Anadolu that the meeting will be held at the Çırağan Palace, a five-star hotel in Istanbul. Background: Russian propaganda outlets have reported that the Russian delegation has left for Türkiye. On the afternoon of Sunday 1 June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the Ukrainian delegation, led by Defence Minister Rustem Umierov, would travel to Istanbul for negotiations with Russia. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Al Jazeera
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Ceasefire still elusive as Russia ‘doesn't want real talks' with Ukraine
Kyiv, Ukraine – United States President Donald Trump sounded jubilant on Monday when he announced the beginning of direct talks between Ukraine and Russia. 'Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations towards a ceasefire, and, more importantly, bring an END to the war,' Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. The statement seemed to fit Trump's art-of-the-deal canon – it would bring about a fast and efficient peace settlement to Europe's hottest armed conflict since World War II and would benefit global security. But European and Ukrainian observers interviewed by Al Jazeera, including a former Russian diplomat and a Ukrainian top ex-military official, said by agreeing to resume the direct talks that were abandoned in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin scored a taciturn diplomatic triumph over Trump. They said Putin has thwarted a ceasefire that his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been insisting upon for months, and excluded Washington from the negotiations. The Russian leader is likely to drag the talks on indefinitely while amassing tens of thousands of new servicemen, in a bid to carve out more Ukrainian territory until rains and snow stop this year's offensive, they said. Moreover, by seemingly bending to Trump's demands to communicate with Kyiv directly, Putin has escaped further US sanctions – while creating an illusion of talks. 'Putin essentially uses Trump just to create a picture that Putin or Russia are ready to negotiate,' Anton Shekhovtsov, head of the Centre for Democratic Integrity, a Vienna-based think tank, told Al Jazeera. However, the 'only thing that Russia is ready to negotiate is the capitulation of Ukraine, nothing else,' he said. 'I don't see what Putin can talk with Zelenskyy about, [as] Putin doesn't consider Zelenskyy a person worthy of communication,' he added. 'I don't see any progress here.' Putin has for years dismissed Zelenskyy as a 'political puppet' whose 'neo-Nazi junta' allegedly forces naturally pro-Russian Ukrainians to accept destructive Western values. On Monday night, after a two-hour phone conversation with Trump, Putin appeared on Russian television to thank Trump for 'his support in resuming direct talks' and to declare the Kremlin's intention to work out a 'memorandum of the future accord' and a 'possible ceasefire'. A former Russian diplomat who quit his Ministry of Foreign Affairs job to protest against Moscow's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine called Putin's readiness an 'imitation'. 'The talks won't be talks because Moscow doesn't want real talks with Kyiv,' Boris Bondarev told Al Jazeera. To Putin, 'Ukraine is but a tool, a proxy, a satellite that doesn't decide a thing by itself.' That is why Putin appointed Vladimir Medinsky, a former culture minister, as lead negotiator, he said. Medinsky, who has authored history books criticised for factual inaccuracy, has not sounded diplomatic so far. On May 16, he threatened that the war would last 'as long as it takes' and told Ukrainian diplomats that Russia fought Sweden for 21 years in 1700-21 to occupy today's Baltic states and build its new imperial capital, St Petersburg, on former Swedish lands. Thus, the peace process Trump announced as his accomplishment is in fact 'the main thing Putin achieved', Bondarev said. 'This is an imitation so that someone in the West thinks that the peace process has begun, and that's why there's no need to help Ukraine, to pressure Putin and to impose new sanctions,' he said. Putin also managed to escape a lull in hostilities that would have helped Ukrainian forces to fortify their positions along the 1,100km (700-mile) front line, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at Germany's Bremen University. 'Apparently, Putin succeeded in nullifying a very disadvantageous initiative by Zelenskyy to immediately start a 30 days-long ceasefire,' he told Al Jazeera. While negotiating, clarifying and delaying the talks, Putin may try to seize more land in eastern and northern Ukraine and even restore the giant Kakhovka Dam that used to supply water to annexed Crimea before being destroyed in 2023, he said. Meanwhile, Moscow has conscripted 160,000 servicemen and keeps recruiting some 50,000 soldiers monthly, in part thanks to the offer of hefty enlistment bonuses, according to Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine's general staff. 'They will need to be trained at least a little so that they don't die that quickly, and so by the end of June, [Moscow] may amass a new resource,' he told Al Jazeera. Europe was unimpressed by what Trump and Putin agreed upon and introduced the 17th round of sanctions against Moscow on Tuesday. Brussels and London said the sanctions would target Moscow's 'shadow fleet' of tankers, the financial institutions that help Moscow avoid earlier sanctions, and the supply chains for Russian arms producers. However, the European sanctions will be less effective without US measures as Putin 'acts in the divide-and-rule way', Romanenko said. 'He wanted everyone [in the West] to step aside from Ukraine, so that there are no arms supplies, and then he could carry out yet another imperial takeover' of Ukrainian territories, he concluded. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that Trump is reluctant to slap new sanctions on Russia. 'If, in fact, it's clear that the Russians are not interested in a peace deal and they just want to keep fighting a war, it may very well come to that point,' Rubio told the US Senate. He also insisted Putin 'hasn't gotten a single concession' from Trump. Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin observers are ecstatic. 'These were very successful talks. They may result in Ukrainian regime's forced acceptance of Russia's conditions, and thus peace will be reached,' Moscow-based analyst Sergey Markov wrote on Telegram on Monday. 'The Ukrainian regime and European leaders are shocked by the talks, they consider them a disaster for Ukraine. They think that Trump agreed with Putin on almost everything,' he wrote.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Vatican could host Ukraine-Russia peace talks, Rubio says
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that the Vatican is prepared to host negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, including a potential direct meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. Source: Rubio in an interview with CBS News Details: Rubio confirmed that the Vatican has offered to facilitate a direct meeting between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia, as well as to support other negotiation formats, including technical discussions. Quote: "So it's a very generous offer that may be taken up on. I mean, it would be a site that all parties would feel comfortable [with]. So hopefully we'll get to that stage where talks are happening on a regular basis and that the Vatican will have the opportunity to be one of the options." Details: When the interviewer noted that Putin did not attend the Istanbul negotiations he himself had initiated, Rubio suggested that Russia remains open to talks under the right conditions. Background: The new Pope Leo XIV proposed the Vatican as a platform for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia after it became clear that the talks in Istanbul would not lead to the desired result. On 17 May, the Kremlin stated that a meeting between Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is possible, but only if certain agreements are reached by the delegations. On 16 May, direct talks were held in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for the first time in over three years. Serhii Kyslytsia, a member of Ukraine's delegation at the Istanbul talks with Russia, stated that the Russian representatives, led by Vladimir Medinsky, behaved aggressively and issued direct threats to the Ukrainian side. Russian representatives voiced several demands to the Ukrainian delegation during a closed meeting in Istanbul on 16 May, setting out the conditions under which Moscow is ready to cease fire. Among them are Ukraine's renunciation of territories and claims for reparations. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Jordan Times
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Jordan Times
Kremlin says Putin-Zelensky meeting possible only after agreement
This handout photograph taken on May 16, 2025 and released on May 17, 2025 by the press service of the Ukrainian Ground Forces shows a crater next to a burnt car following a drone attack in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk region (AFP photo) KYIV, Ukraine — The Kremlin on Saturday said a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be possible only after both sides reach an agreement, a day after Moscow and Kyiv held their first direct talks in more than three years, which did not result in a truce. The first direct talks since the spring of 2022 -- shortly after Moscow's full-scale invasion that February -- between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul resulted in a concrete agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners each. Ukraine's top negotiator, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, said the "next step" would be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin. Russia said it took note of the request. "We consider it possible, but only as a result of the work and upon achieving certain results in the form of an agreement between the two sides," the Kremlin's spokesman said. Russia's top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky said that Moscow and Kyiv would "present their vision of a possible future ceasefire", without saying when. The Kremlin said that first the POW swap must be completed and both sides need to present their visions for a ceasefire before fixing the next round of talks. "For now, we need to do what the delegations agreed on yesterday" in Turkey, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that "this, of course, means first and foremost to complete a 1,000 for 1,000 swap". The head of Ukraine's military intelligence Kirillo Budanov told broadcaster TSN he hoped the exchange would happen next week and that he saw no hurdles to the swap. Fighting goes on On Saturday, there were few signs of progress towards halting the fighting. The bus was attacked near the city of Bilopillya, local community head Yuri Zarko told Suspilne TV. A family of three died in the attack, the authorities said. Elsewhere on the frontlines, the Russian army said its troops captured Oleksandropil village in the eastern Donetsk region, where some of the most intense fighting in the war is ongoing. Apart from Sumy, Russia pounded missiles and drones across eastern Ukraine, hitting the Kherson, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions, killing six and wounding more than a dozen. In Kherson, Russian shelling hit a truck carrying humanitarian aid on Saturday morning. 'Real steps' needed French President Emmanuel Macron said he was sure that US counterpart Donald Trump would react to Putin's "cynicism" on Ukraine following the deadly minibus attack. Putin declined to travel to Turkey for the meeting. Zelensky accused him of being "afraid" and Russia of not taking the talks "seriously". "Yesterday in Istanbul, everyone saw a weak and unprepared Russian delegation with no significant powers. This must change. We need real steps to end the war," Zelensky said on Saturday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the outcome of the Istanbul talks during a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Saturday, Russia's Foreign Ministry said, adding Moscow was ready to continue working with the US on the matter. On Friday, Zelensky attended a European summit in Albania where he urged a "strong reaction" from the world if the Istanbul talks failed, including new sanctions. Macron said European nations were coordinating with Washington on additional sanctions should Moscow continue to refuse an "unconditional ceasefire". Both Moscow and Washington have talked up the need for a meeting on the conflict between Putin and US President Donald Trump. Trump has argued that "nothing's going to happen" on the conflict until he meets Putin face-to-face. During the Istanbul talks, the Ukrainian side said Russia was making "unacceptable" territorial demands. Moscow claims annexation of five Ukrainian regions -- four since its 2022 invasion, and Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
