Russia and Ukraine have agreed a prisoner swap after peace talks in Istanbul, with Vladimir Putin’s negotiator saying Moscow suggested a short ceasefire in certain areas. Follow the latest here and submit a question for our Q&A with defence and security analyst Michael Clarke below.
Monday 2 June 2025 20:02, UK
Security and defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke will be answering your questions on the war in Ukraine this Wednesday.
You can submit a question via the form at the top of this page.
Clarke takes a look at them each week and offers his insights on the likes of peace negotiations, the latest from the battlefield, or Donald Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin.
Catch up on last week’s Q&A below…
We’ll be back tomorrow with more updates on the war in Ukraine.
Before we go, here is a look at the key lines from today:
Back here in the UK, Defence Secretary John Healey has pledged to “create a British Army that is 10 times more lethal” through software and long-range weapons.
Artificial intelligence, drones and a £1bn investment in homeland missile defence are all part of the plans to keep the UK safe in the face of threats from Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the rise of China.
Looking at the threat the UK is under, General Lord Richard Dannatt has told Sky’s Johnathan Samuels the “principle threat” comes from Russia.
“The Ukrainians have done a fantastic job in containing Russia over the last few years,” he said.
“There will probably be a ceasefire of some sort in the next one to three months.
“It will probably take the Russians about two years to reset themselves and put themselves in a position where they can become aggressive elsewhere again.
“I think this will tempt Vladimir Putin to want to test the strength of NATO and test whether Article 5 still holds true – if an attack on one is an attack on all members.”
Lord Dannatt also noted that Putin has always wanted to “fragment the cohesion of the West and NATO”.
“He would love to rupture that,” he added.
There is very much a sense of Groundhog Day in the latest peace talks, says Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett.
This time they were even shorter than the last round, taking little over an hour.
“The only concrete thing to come of it was another prisoner swap.”
A ceasefire for a couple of days to collect and exchange dead soldiers was also proposed by the Russian side.
“On a personal level, for the soldiers involved in any prisoner exchange, and also for the families of the dead soldiers who are due to be returned, this is obviously a significant moment,” says Bennett.
“But these are the easy things to agree on because they give a win for each side.
“They’re like-for-like, but it doesn’t bring the two sides closer together, which was very much on display today.”
There was “no love lost” at the negotiating table.
Ukraine has proposed holding more talks before the end of the month.
“The talk is one of peace, but the mood is very much one of war.”
Russia does not want a ceasefire and new sanctions are needed now to force it to pursue peace, the chief of staff to Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
Andriy Yermak said on X that the Russians were “doing everything to not cease firing and continue the war” as he urged for more sanctions.
Here is what he had to say hours after the conclusion of peace talks in Istanbul…
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has been taking questions from reporters in the last few moments.
Asked about Donald Trump’s reaction to Ukraine’s drone attack on Russia on Sunday, she said: “The reaction is this war needs to come to an end.
“This war has been brutal from both sides and too many people have died.
“The president wants this war to end at the negotiating table and he has made that clear to both leaders both publicly and privately.”
Ukraine and Russia have agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners each, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
Speaking in a new briefing, the Ukrainian leader said each side would give the other lists of people they want included in a planned prisoner of war swap next week.
There was also the possibility of swapping an additional 200 prisoners.
He said the sides agreed to return the remains of killed service personnel, but this would take careful preparation.
Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian negotiators gave their Russian counterparts a list of nearly 400 children it wanted Russia to return home to Ukraine, but that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning only 10 of them.
He also referred to a Ukrainian intelligence operation on Sunday, codenamed “Spider’s Web”, in which drones smuggled inside wooden sheds attacked Russian military airfields, and said the operation had helped to restore partners’ confidence that Ukraine is able to continue fighting Russia.
Russian negotiators have handed Ukraine two proposed options for a ceasefire, Russian state media reports.
RIA news agency says the first would require Ukraine to commence a complete withdrawal of all its forces from four regions of the country that Russia has claimed as its own territory – they are the Russian-controlled regions in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The second option would be a “package” deal containing a number of conditions, RIA says.
Russia’s TASS news agency says the complete withdrawal of the Ukraine’s armed forces from the Russian-controlled territory “must be carried out within 30 days of the ceasefire”.
Also in Russia’s memorandum is the demand that there is international recognition of Crimea, Donbass and Novorossiya as part of Russia, TASS says.
The Kremlin also demands that Ukraine remains “neutral”.
During a news conference today, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Serhi Kyslytsya, said the Russian side “continue to reject the notion of an unconditional ceasefire”.
“The very unconditional ceasefire that the American president himself offered a while ago,” he said.
Meanwhile, defence minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, told reporters that Kyiv officials would need a week to review the Russian memorandum and decide on a response.
“Only today, the Russian delegation handed over their documentation to our delegation,” he said.
Ukraine proposed further talks on a date between 20-30 June.
An unconditional ceasefire is one of the key terms laid out by Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
You can watch a clip here…
By Sophia Massam, junior digital investigations journalist
In this image below, Ukraine’s security service head is looking at satellite images of the Russian bases hit on Sunday.
The picture of Lieutenant General Vasyl Maliuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, was shared on X by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). The satellite images appear to have been framed.
In the post, Ukraine claims that “34% of strategic cruise missile carriers at the main airfields of the Russian Federation were hit”.
Sky News has matched the locations of four sites struck by Ukrainian drones in Sunday’s large-scale attack deep inside Russia.
One of the site’s is the Olenya airbase in the Murmansk region and the other is the Diaghilev airbase in the Ryazan region.
The Ivanovo Severnyy airbase in the Ivanovo region and the Belaya airbase in the Irkutsk region were also hit.
These four were confirmed to have been struck by an SBU press release.
The final airbase was not mentioned in the press release, and appears to be the Ukrainka airbase in the far east of Russia.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned against Vladimir Putin decided whether Ukraine is able to join NATO.
In a post on X, the Ukrainian leader stressed that Putin “must get nothing that would justify his aggression”.
“Any reward would only show him that war pays off,” he said.
He confirmed that both the Ukraine and Russian delegation had exchanged documents through the Turkish side, and they were also preparing a new release of prisoners of war.
Touching on the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, he said this cannot be dictated by Putin, adding: “Decisions for Europe, not for Putin.”
Here is what Zelenskyy has said this afternoon…
Russia has repeatedly said Ukraine must remain “neutral” and NATO membership is a red line for them.
But Zelenskyy has been pushing for Ukraine to join the defence alliance and even said he is willing to give up his presidency for it.
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free