Russia and Ukraine have discussed further prisoner swaps during brief talks in Istanbul, but the sides remained far apart on ceasefire terms and a possible meeting of their leaders.
“We have progress on the humanitarian track, with no progress on a cessation of hostilities,” Ukraine’s chief delegate Rustem Umerov said after talks that lasted just 40 minutes.
He said Ukraine had proposed a meeting before the end of August between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added: “By agreeing to this proposal, Russia can clearly demonstrate its constructive approach.”
Russia’s chief delegate Vladimir Medinsky said the point of a leaders’ meeting should be to sign an agreement, not to “discuss everything from scratch”.
He renewed Moscow’s call for a series of short ceasefires of 24-48 hours to enable the retrieval of bodies. Ukraine says it wants an immediate and much longer ceasefire.
The talks took place just over a week after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened heavy new sanctions on Russia and countries that buy its exports unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days.
There was no sign of any progress towards that goal, although both sides said there was discussion of further humanitarian exchanges following a series of prisoner swaps, the latest of which took place on Wednesday.
Medinsky said the negotiators agreed to exchange at least 1,200 more prisoners of war from each side, and Russia had offered to hand over another 3,000 Ukrainian bodies.
He said Moscow was working through a list of 339 names of Ukrainian children that Kyiv accuses it of abducting. Russia denies that charge and says it has offered protection to children separated from their parents during the war.
“Some of the children have already been returned back to Ukraine. Work is under way on the rest. If their legal parents, close relatives, representatives are found, these children will immediately return home,” Medinsky said.
Umerov said Kyiv was expecting “further progress” on POWs, adding: “We continue to insist on the release of civilians, including children.” Ukrainian authorities say at least 19,000 children have been forcibly deported.
‘End this bloody war’
The talks on Wednesday, the first meeting in seven weeks, come with Moscow under growing pressure from US President Donald Trump to agree to end the war or face tough new sanctions.
Opening the meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said he hoped the parties would make progress based on documents they exchanged at their last encounter in June to “end this bloody war as soon as possible”.
“The ultimate goal here is, of course, a ceasefire that will pave the way for peace,” Fidan said.
The two sides previously met in the Turkish city in May and June, but at those talks managed to agree only on other exchanges of prisoners and soldiers’ bodies.
Trump last week gave Russia 50 days to end the war or face sanctions, but the Kremlin has not indicated it is willing to compromise.
Prior to the talks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that he expected the negotiations to be “very difficult”.
“No one expects an easy road,” Peskov told reporters.
Previous rounds of talks have led to a series of exchanges of prisoners of war and the bodies of fallen soldiers.
But they failed to produce a ceasefire, as Russian negotiators refused to drop hardline demands that were not acceptable to Ukraine, including ceding four Ukrainian regions Russia claims as its own and rejecting Western military support.
Bloodshed continues
The talks come as Russia continues its bloody offensive against its neighbour, with its forces mounting sustained efforts to break through at eastern and northeastern points on the 1,000km (620-mile) front line.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had captured the settlement of Varachyne in Ukraine’s northeast Sumy region, about 6km (3.7 miles) from the border. In recent weeks, Putin announced his intention to create a “buffer zone” in the Sumy region by occupying Ukrainian border areas.
In other recent violence, Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed a 66-year-old woman overnight, the dpa news agency reported, quoting regional military governor Oleksandr Prokudin. Three people, including two 13-year-olds, were injured, he said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Moscow had launched 71 drones and decoys overnight, of which 45 were intercepted or brought down, the agency reported.
