Russia and Ukraine changed plans to finish their three -year war during the conversations in Istanbul with the aim of finding an exit to the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that any agreement should not “reward” the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but said that kyiv was willing to take the “necessary steps for peace.”
Moved by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, Moscow and kyiv have opened direct negotiations for the first time since the first weeks of Russia’s invasion, but have not yet advanced towards an agreement.
Monday’s conversations arrive a day after Ukraine carried out one of their most shameless and successful attacks on the Russian soil, using drones to hit dozens of strategic bombers parked in air bases thousands of kilometers behind the front line.
A first round of meetings in Istanbul last month produced an exchange of large -scale prisoners but without pause in fighting, which has been unleashed since Russia invaded in February 2022.
On Monday, the delegations “exchanged documents on the Turkish side, and we are preparing a new release of prisoners of the war,” Zelensky said at a press conference in Vilnius just after the conversations concluded in Istanbul.
“The key to lasting peace is clear, the aggressor should not receive any reward for war. Putin should not obtain anything that justifies his aggression,” he added.
Opening the talks in the Ciragán Palace in Istanbul, an Ottoman Imperial House on the banks of the Bosphorus that is now a five -star luxury hotel: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that the “eyes of the entire world” were watching.
Zelensky had said that kyiv was “ready to take the necessary measures for peace”, although Russian and Ukrainian negotiation positions have long seemed irreconcilable.
‘IMMEDIATED INSENINES’
“If they are ready to advance, not only repeat the previous ultimatums, then there may be good and great news today,” said a source of the Ukrainian delegation before the conversations.
Ukraine wants a “high and unconditional fire” to allow space to discuss a long -term agreement. Russia has repeatedly rejected those calls.
Moscow says that he wants to address the “fundamental causes” of the conflict: the language generally used to refer to a combination of radical demands, including the limitation of the military of Ukraine, prohibit the country from joining NATO and mass territorial concessions.
kyiv and the West say that these concerns have no basis and that the assault of Russia is nothing more than a hoarding of imperialist lands.
Tens of thousands have been killed since Russia invaded, with strips of East and South Ukraine destroyed and millions forced to flee their homes, in the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
‘There is no home’
In the city of Dobropillya on the front line, in eastern Ukraine, said Volodymyr, 53 AFP That he believes that conversations in Istanbul would be very little.
“We thought everything would stop. And now there is nothing to expect. We have no home, nothing. We were almost killed by drones,” he said.
In Kramorsk, a garrison city near the front with trenches and spike wire rolls on its outskirts, a Ukrainian military also said that conversations in Turkiye would probably not highlight any results.
“I have no faith in them. But it would be great if they could accept stopping, having some kind of respite, so that we could take our boys, those who died, and that men would simply stop dying,” he told AFPDrinking coffee.
After months of setbacks for the kyiv army, Ukraine said he had carried out a bold attack on Sunday, damaging about 40 strategic Russian bombers worth $ 7 billion in an important special operation.
Kyiv’s security service said the plan, 18 months in process, had involved the smuggling of drones to Russia, and then throwing them from near the air bases, thousands of kilometers from the front lines.
In the field, Russia’s territorial advance increased in May, according to AFP Data analysis of the War Study (ISW) based in the United States.
Before the conversations, Russian officials have requested that Ukraine be cut from Western military support and yields territory still controlled by their army. kyiv has previously accepted that he can only obtain territory by Russia through diplomacy, not the struggles.
Ukraine also wants security guarantees supported by the specific west, such as the protections or troops of NATO on the ground, which have been discarded by Russia.
