Second Round of Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks Break After Four Hours

The Ukrainian delegation was seen walking out of direct talks with Russia in Istanbul on Monday, the second time the two sides have met face-to-face since the start of the war.

Peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia hosted by the Turkish government at a historic palace in Istanbul lasted a little less than four hours on Monday afternoon. The talks came at an even tenser moment than usual for the two nations, as both sides had launched massive drone attacks over the weekend against each other, presumably as shows of strength before sitting down to talk.

The Ukrainian delegation, led by their Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, were seen descending an external staircase at the Ciragan palace to a courtyard where official vehicles were waiting.

According to the BBC, Umerov said as he withdrew that Russia had given Ukraine a memorandum on its proposals for a ceasefire, and that the Ukrainian delegation would now withdraw for one week to consider it, a clear indication that these talks are going nowhere fast. Further, he said, the two sides had agreed to a prisoner exchange of “all seriously wounded or ill, or under 18”, and an exchange of corpses of the fallen.

In a further hint at progress, Umerov said the two sides had discussed a potential future leaders’ meeting between Putin and Zelensky. This has been mooted and discussed for months now without apparent acceleration towards the goal.

Earlier in the afternoon, both sides had sat around a large conference table in the palace with a delegation of senior Turkish ministers between the two sides, including Turkey’s foriegn minister and head of intelligence, as well as military officers. Russia had previously said it wanted no mediation in talks, but the presence of Turkey may have aided proceedings after the previous talks in mid-May — the first in-person talks in years — ended inconclusively after only hours.

One matter of disagreement on the way into today’s negotiations was the status of the ceasefire Ukraine says must be achieved before real peace talks can begin. Ukraine handed Russia a memoradum with its suggestions for a ceasefire in advance and asked for the same in return. Russia, on the other hand, said it did not want negotiations to take place in public, only behind closed doors, and said it would only hand over its memo at the meeting.

Ukraine had previously cast doubt over whehter it would attend the talks at all over Moscow’s position on the exchange of memoranda.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was not in Istanbul but was attending a conference in Lithuania. Before today’s talks got underway, he said if they failed that would be Russia’s fault alone, and then it would therefore be a signal to the international community to heap more punishments on Russia.

That should be more sanctions on Russia, Zelensky said, and specifically “the strongest sanctions President Trump promised”. The U.S. President has previously mooted the concept of a secondary sanction, being punishments on the countries that buy Russian goods, rather than Russia itself, effectively denying Moscow access to the global market for exports like gas and oil.