Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia and Ukraine would hold a new round of peace talks in Istanbul on Wednesday.
“Today I discussed with [Ukrainian Security Council head] Rustem Umerov preparations for the prisoner exchange and another meeting in Turkey with the Russian side,” Zelensky said in his daily address on Monday. “Umerov said that the meeting is scheduled for Wednesday.”
Zelensky proposed holding new talks over the weekend, days after US President Donald Trump threatened Russia with “tough” sanctions if a ceasefire was not reached between Moscow and Kiev within 50 days.
Moscow said on Tuesday that it did not expect a “miraculous breakthrough” from the talks.
“We intend to defend our interests, we intend to ensure our interests and fulfill the tasks that we set for ourselves from the very beginning,” Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said at a daily briefing for journalists.
He expressed hope that the talks would take place this week, but did not give an exact date.
Two previous rounds of direct talks between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul failed to produce a ceasefire agreement, and the sides remain divided over how to achieve it.
Washington has promised to provide new weapons to the Ukrainian military after Russia stepped up attacks.
A child was killed when a Russian glide bomb hit a residential building in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday night, local authorities said. Earlier, six districts of Kyiv were hit by a combined attack using drones and missiles.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces said they had repelled more than 50 attacks in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, where Russia has concentrated much of its firepower in recent months. Ukrainian military commander Oleksandr Syrsky said Russian sabotage groups had already attempted to enter the city.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti, citing a source, reported that the next round of negotiations will take place over two days – Thursday and Friday.
A Turkish government spokesman said Wednesday’s talks would take place at the same site where previous talks in May and June failed to produce a ceasefire, Agence France-Presse reported.
This week’s talks will be the latest attempt to end the war that has lasted more than three years. They come after Trump expressed dissatisfaction with Vladimir Putin, telling the BBC he was “disappointed” but “not finished” with the Russian leader.
- Trump tells BBC he’s ‘disappointed but not done’ with Putin
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A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that the talks in Istanbul could focus on further prisoner exchanges and a possible meeting between Zelensky and Putin.
However, Moscow is downplaying the likelihood of achieving any concrete results in the near future.
Commenting on the prospects for a breakthrough, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that the positions of the parties were “diametrically opposed” and “a lot of diplomatic work lies ahead.”
Russia has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, causing record civilian casualties, and launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022.
Source: bbc.com