Kremlin advisor Vladimir Medinsky drew a favorable conclusion from the first meeting held in three years with the Russian delegation in Istanbul and declared himself willing to continue talks, whose most concrete result has been the agreement between both countries to exchange a total of 2,000 prisoners of war in the near future, a thousand from each side.
Ukraine has not yet commented on a continuation of public negotiations. Ukrainian Minister of Defense and head of the delegation, Rustem Umerov, simply stated that “we are currently working on different ways” of conversation and there will be “exchanges of documents”, without providing further details.
The negotiations were supposed to start on Thursday and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, arrived in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, but Vladimir Putin chose to send a second-tier delegation to Istanbul.
Will the negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine continue?
“In general, we are satisfied with the outcome and willing to continue the contacts,” said Vladimir Medinsky in a brief statement to the media, including the Russian news agency TASS.
The Kremlin advisor commented that, if it happens, the upcoming meetings will consist of a detailed analysis of the respective ceasefire proposals and also confirmed that the Ukrainian side reiterated its call for direct talks between the two presidents, Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.
“The next step should be to organize a meeting of leaders” between Putin and Zelensky, according to Ukrainian minister Umerov, who considered this possible meeting as the “next step” to take.
The only concrete result obtained so far is an agreement, confirmed by both Russia and Ukraine, to carry out an exchange in the coming days of a thousand prisoners of war, as Umerov announced upon leaving the meeting. Medinski hopes the exchange will take place in the next few days, while Umerov has indeed confirmed that “there is already a date” set for it, which will be kept secret.
The meeting started shortly after a trilateral meeting between delegations from Ukraine, Turkey, and the United States, which was represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The delegations from Ukraine and Turkey were represented by their respective Foreign Ministers, Andri Sibiga and Hakan Fidan.
President of Ukraine spoke with Trump and with leaders of major European countries
Zelensky had a phone conversation with Donald Trump on Friday, coinciding with the resumption of direct talks between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul.
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France; Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom; Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany; and Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, also participated.