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Kyiv and Moscow are still far apart on how to end the war and the fighting is stepping up
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The second round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine ended barely an hour after they began in Istanbul.
The talks – the second such direct contacts between the sides since 2022 – had already begun nearly two hours later than scheduled with no explanation of the delay.
The mood in Russia was angry as the talks kicked off, with influential war bloggers calling on Moscow to deliver a fearsome retaliatory blow against Kyiv after Ukraine launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war, targeting Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and elsewhere.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking in Lithuania, later said the two sides were preparing a new exchange of prisoners of war.
His chief of staff also said the Ukrainian delegation had handed over a list of deported children to Russia during Monday’s talks that Ukraine wants returned home.
The first round of talks on 16 May yielded the biggest prisoner swap of the war but no sign of peace – or even a ceasefire as both sides merely set out their opening negotiating positions.
Russian negotiators handed a detailed memorandum to their Ukrainian counterparts outlining Moscow’s terms for a full ceasefire, Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky told reporters after talks in Istanbul.
Mr Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, also said Russia had suggested a ceasefire of two to three days in certain areas.
Ukraine believes that all key issues at talks with Russia can only be resolved at the level of leaders and proposes holding a meeting by the end of June to make progress, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a direct meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Nordic, Baltic and central European Nato members are committed to Ukrainian membership of the military alliance, the leaders of Poland, Romania and Lithuania said.
Nato allies declared their support for Ukraine’s “irreversible path” towards membership at last year’s Washington summit.
But Donald Trump has since said that prior US support for Ukraine’s Nato bid was a cause of the war and has further indicated that Ukraine will not get membership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging Nato eastwards, and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia.
Poland, Romania and Lithuania said on Monday, after a meeting of Nordic, Baltic and Eastern European leaders in the capital of Lithuania, that the region remains committed to the path towards Ukrainian NATO membership, and called for further pressure on Russia, including more sanctions.
Ukraine and Russia are working on a fresh exchange of prisoners of war, Volodymyr Zelensky said after peace talks concluded between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul.
The Ukrainian president was speaking in the Lithuanian capital, where he was attending a meeting of central European and Nordic states.
The second round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine ended barely an hour after they began in Istanbul.
The talks – the second such direct contact between the sides since 2022 – had already begun nearly two hours later than scheduled with no explanation of the delay.
Ukrainian delegates in Istanbul have handed over to Russian negotiators a list of children Kyiv wants Moscow to return to Ukraine, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said.
Ukrainian officials say hundreds of children were forcibly removed from Ukrainian territory by Russian forces, and it wants them returned as part of a peace deal. Moscow says the children were moved to protect them from fighting.
The success of Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, which destroyed more than 40 Russian bombers, will have caused delight and terror in the hearts of Kyiv’s allies, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley.
The homegrown operation to hide drones in the false compartments of prefabricated sheds and unleash them simultaneously many thousands of miles apart, and many thousands of miles behind enemy lines, has clipped the wings of Vladimir Putin’s strategic air operations.
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