Still no ceasefire Russia and Ukraine swap peace memos and agree to new prisoner exchange in second round of Istanbul talks
Russia and Ukraine agreed to hold another prisoner exchange and return the bodies of thousands of fallen soldiers during peace talks on Monday in Istanbul. The negotiations, which lasted about an hour and took place behind closed doors, marked the second round of direct talks between the two sides since March 2022.
The delegations also exchanged memoranda on a possible ceasefire, officials said. Kyiv submitted its peace memorandum to Moscow ahead of the talks. Meanwhile, Russian delegation leader Vladimir Medinsky, a Kremlin aide, said Russia handed over its memorandum to Turkish officials who hosted the talks. According to Medinsky, the document outlines steps toward a possible ceasefire and conditions for “real long-term peace.” Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, said Kyiv will take a week to study the Russian memorandum before deciding how to proceed.
After the talks concluded, Russian state media published the full text of the Kremlin memorandum on Telegram. Earlier, an anonymous Ukrainian official told Axios that the document outlines Russia’s “usual” demands, including the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from regions Moscow claims to have annexed but does not fully control. The text of Ukraine’s peace proposal was previously obtained by Reuters and the Financial Times.
Both sides agreed to exchange seriously injured and ill prisoners of war, captives under age 25, and the bodies of 12,000 fallen soldiers, Umerov said at a press conference after Monday’s talks. Medinsky said the upcoming swap would be the largest since the war began and would involve between 1,000 and 1,200 prisoners.
The first round of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on May 16 resulted in a “1,000-for-1,000” prisoner exchange, the largest of the war to date. Later on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine aims to bring back up to 1,200 captives during the next prisoner swap.
While Umerov said the two sides agreed to a “6,000-for-6,000” exchange of fallen soldiers’ remains, Medinsky said Russia would “unilaterally” hand over 6,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers and officers to Ukraine next week.
Russia also proposed a ceasefire for two or three days in some areas of the front line to allow the sides to collect the bodies of fallen soldiers, Medinsky said. “We want to create conditions for the bodies of the dead to be collected and right there, on the spot, quickly transferred to the opposing side for a Christian burial,” he told reporters. President Zelensky later pushed back against the idea. “They are ready for a ceasefire for two or three days to collect the dead from the battlefield. I think they’re idiots, because a ceasefire is so that there are no dead,” he said during an online press briefing. “For them, this is a matter of a small pause in the war.”
The Ukrainian delegation also gave the Russian side a list of Ukrainian children who were deported to Russia during the war, demanding their return, Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said after the talks. “We’re talking about hundreds of children who were illegally deported, forcibly transferred, or are being held in temporarily occupied territories. The return of these children is an inseparable part of a just and lasting peace and a key element of trust. It’s the first test of whether Russia’s intentions are sincere. We’re waiting for a response. The ball is in Russia’s court,” he wrote on Telegram.
According to The Economist correspondent Oliver Carroll, citing an informed source, Medinsky responded to the list by saying, “Don’t put on a show for bleeding-heart European old ladies with no children of their own.”
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights. The warrants accused them of overseeing the illegal deportations of children from Ukraine’s occupied territories to Russia.
Speaking to the press after Monday’s talks, Medinsky said that Kyiv had given Moscow a list of 339 Ukrainian children, though he denied that Russia had abducted them. He then accused Ukrainian officials of turning the issue into a “shameful show aimed at compassionate Europeans.” Nevertheless, he said that Russia was “satisfied” with the outcome of the second round of talks.
According to the Financial Times, the Ukrainian delegation said that Russia rejected its proposals for an unconditional ceasefire and for the United States to become more involved in the talks. Earlier, Zelensky had proposed a three-way meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump. In turn, Trump said he would meet with Zelensky and Putin if needed.
Ukraine proposed that the delegations meet again between June 20 and 30. Umerov said that the next round of talks should be aimed at brokering a meeting between the two countries’ leaders, with the possible involvement of “other leaders, in particular, the U.S. President.” However, the timing and format of the next round of negotiations remain unclear. Commenting on the results of Monday’s talks, a senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times that the sides appeared to be “staging a picture of diplomacy for Trump.”
