Russia continues to reject an unconditional ceasefire with Ukraine, but both sides agreed to swap prisoners during brief peace talks in Turkey, Ukraine has revealed.
Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine lasted barely an hour on Monday in Istanbul but may have paved the way for further conversations and even a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The talks - the second such direct contacts between the sides since 2022 - began nearly two hours later than scheduled with no explanation of the delay.
Although the atmosphere was subdued and the dialogue brief, they did yield an agreement to conduct a new prisoner exchange, and Ukraine said another round of talks was on the agenda.
Deputy Ukrainian Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsya said the Russian side continued to reject an unconditional ceasefire.
The Ukrainian delegation also criticised Russia again for not allowing the United States to take part in the peace talks, or in a meeting that took place last month.
Meanwhile, Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky told reporters that Russia had suggested a ceasefire of two to three days in certain areas.
He told reporters that all heavily wounded and ill will be swapped between the two war-torn nations and prisoners of war under the age of 25 will be swapped. The bodies of dead soldiers will also be returned.
Russian negotiators on Monday also handed a detailed memorandum to their Ukrainian counterparts outlining Moscow's terms for a full ceasefire, Medinsky added following the talks.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv's delegation, later confirmed Ukraine had received Russia's memorandum, adding that the delegation will now take a week "to decide further steps".
He explained there were also discussions about a potential meeting between Zelensky and Putin, possibly also involving US President Donald Trump at the end of the month.
Similarly, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his nation will take steps to bring together the leaders of Russia and Ukraine for talks in either the capital Ankara or in Istanbul.
"My desire is to bring (Vladimir) Putin and (Volodymyr) Zelensky together in Istanbul or Ankara. Also to invite (U.S. President Donald) Trump to this meeting as well...We will take steps for this meeting after the latest talks," Erdogan said, speaking after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.
The talks came a day after a massive Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's nuclear-capable strategic bombers.
In Russia, before the talks began, angry war bloggers had called on Moscow to deliver a fearsome retaliatory blow against Kyiv after Ukraine launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war on Sunday, targeting Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and elsewhere.
Ukraine and Russia have issued starkly different assessments of the damage done to Russia's fleet of strategic bombers - a key element in its nuclear arsenal - but it was clear from publicly available satellite imagery that Moscow had suffered some serious equipment losses.
"The eyes of the whole world are focused on the contacts here," Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had told the Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the start of talks as they faced off against each other on opposite sides of the room in the sumptuous Ciragan Palace by the Bosphorus.
He said the aim of the meeting was to evaluate the conditions for a ceasefire, to discuss a possible meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, and to look at more prisoner exchange opportunities.
The new prisoner exchange follows the biggest prisoner swap of the war brokered at the last round of talks.
Ukraine has proposed holding more talks before the end of June, but believes that only a meeting between Zelensky and Putin can resolve the many issues of contention, Umerov said.
Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Kyiv's delegation had handed over a list of children it said had been deported to Russia and which it wanted back. Moscow says such children were moved in order to protect them from fighting.
On Monday, the two sides had been expected to discuss their wildly different ideas for what a full ceasefire and a longer term path to peace should look like amid pressure from US President Trump, who has said the US could abandon its role as a mediator if there is no progress.
But Umerov said Kyiv had been unable to react to Russia's proposals for peace because it had only seen them on Monday.
While both countries, for different reasons, are keen to keep Trump engaged in the peace process, expectations of a breakthrough on Monday had been low.
Ukraine regards Russia's approach to date as an attempt to force it to yield - something Kyiv says it will never do - while Moscow, which advanced on the battlefield in May at its fastest rate in six months, says Kyiv should submit to peace on Russian terms or face losing more territory.
