Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a prisoner swap following talks in Istanbul today. But Kyiv’s delegation also accused Moscow of making “unrealistic” demands, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Vladimir Putin of being scared to meet him. Catch up with our latest Ukraine Q&A below.
Friday 16 May 2025 18:46, UK
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Despite today’s peace talks in Istanbul brining Ukraine and Russia together for the first time in three years, fighting still rages on.
Scroll through the maps below to view different parts of the battlefield, including the situation in key regions such as Luhansk, Donetsk, Kursk and Belgorod.
The former US ambassador to Ukraine said she resigned because she disagreed with Donald Trump’s handling of the war in Ukraine.
Bridget Brink, who served as ambassador to Ukraine from May 2022 until her departure last month, outlined the reasons for her departure in an op-ed published today by the Detroit Free Press.
“I respect the president’s right and responsibility to determine US foreign policy with proper checks and balances by US Congress,” she said.
“Unfortunately, the policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia.”
“As such, I could no longer in good faith carry out the administration’s policy and felt it was my duty to step down.”
A diplomat for almost 30 years, Brink was confirmed as ambassador three months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“I cannot stand by while a country is invaded, a democracy bombarded, and children killed with impunity,” Brink added.
“I believe that the only way to secure US interests is to stand up for democracies and to stand against autocrats. Peace at any price is not peace at all – it is appeasement.”
Here’s the moment that delegations from Ukraine and Russia met for direct peace talks for the first time in three years.
Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin or Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were present at talks.
The two sides agreed to a prisoner swap and to present a “vision of a possible ceasefire” during future talks.
There was also an expression of intent from the Ukrainian side to bring Zelenskyy and Putin together for a face-to-face meeting.
The last few days of peace talks in Turkey have been more “spectacle” than “content”, Sky News’ international correspondent Alex Rossi says.
He says there has been an “element of theatre” in Istanbul, with both Ukraine and Russia keen to “push their narratives across in order to garner international support”.
“Ukrainians want to show they are really serious about peace and undermine Russians by ’empty-chairing’ Putin,” Rossi says.
“From the Russian point of view, the low-level delegation sent to Turkey speaks volumes.
“They want to send the message that they are keen to do things diplomatically, but they are stopping short of going anywhere near a ceasefire.”
Rossi says this is partly because as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned, Moscow is winning on the battlefield, and every inch of territory they take makes Russia stronger when “eventually everybody does have to get serious and sit around the table”.
Putin wants to regain Soviet Union losses
Rossi says a key element that has been lost when thinking about the Russia-Ukraine conflict is Putin’s desire to redefine Soviet space.
“Putin wants a sit down with Donald Trump, he wants to reverse the losses that happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,” he says.
“The big question in all of this is will Trump remain engaged enough to move towards that meeting.
“Ultimately, the diplomatic showdown that everyone is waiting for is a meeting that involves Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin all perhaps in the same room.”
Pope Leo XIV has proposed the Vatican as a venue for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine after discussions in Istanbul failed to bear fruit, according to the Vatican’s secretary of state.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin described the outcome of the Turkey talks as “tragic”.
“It’s all tragic because we hoped that a process would begin, perhaps slowly, but with a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Instead, we are back to square one,” he said at an event organised by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Rome.
If necessary, the Pope will “provide the Vatican, the Holy See, for a direct meeting between the two sides”, he added.
After Rustem Umerov spoke to reporters in Istanbul, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi took over questions.
He reiterates that, during talks today, the Russian delegation “voiced a number of things which we deem unacceptable”.
“We have a long experience of all kinds of talks with the Russians. Believe me, since 2014, there were many rounds,” he says, referring to talks between Kyiv and Moscow following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“So I would say that the Ukrainian delegation knows how to handle all the things that might be voiced from that side.”
Tykhyi says the Ukrainian delegation had a “clear agenda” to secure a ceasefire at talks.
“This is logical because if you want to have serious negotiations, you need to have guns silent,” he says.
Emmanuel Macron has said Russia has shown it is “merely trying to buy time” by continuing the war with Ukraine.
The French president posted on X saying that by rejecting the ceasefire deal, Russia has shown it does not want peace.
He said as a result, the “coalition of the willing” – a group of 31 countries that have pledged to support Ukraine against Russia – will “define a united response”.
We’re just hearing from the head of the Ukrainian delegation, defence minister Rustem Umerov.
He says the team’s “first priority was people” in Istanbul today, which is why the agreement was made to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each.
“The second objective was to discuss ceasefire,” he adds, saying the two teams “will be working on exchanging the details.”
Umerov says the next step would be for a meeting between Ukraine and Russia at the “leaders’ level”.
“We once again would like to reiterate that Ukraine wants peace. Ukraine is focused [on] people and we’re able and capable to continue fighting.
“But at the end of the day, we need to finalise this war.”
Russia threatened Ukraine with “eternal war” during direct peace talks in Istanbul today, a source in the Kyiv delegation has told Sky News.
The source said the Russians were not ready to talk about the technical details of a ceasefire and were waiting for superiors to approve them.
We heard earlier from a Ukrainian source how Moscow made demands which were “unrealistic” and “far beyond anything ever discussed” during the talks in Istanbul (see 13.38 post).
Turkey’s foreign minister has confirmed that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap as a result of today’s peace talks.
Hakan Fidan posted on X to say the swap, which will involve 1,000 Ukrainians and 1,000 Russians, is a “confidence-building measure”.
He also said both sides said they would agree to share, in writing, the “conditions that would make it possible to reach a ceasefire”.
Fidan described the negotiations as an “important day for world peace”.
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