Russia and Ukraine reach new prisoner exchange deal at talks in Istanbul

Istanbul — Russia and Ukraine said they had agreed at peace talks on Monday to exchange more prisoners of war and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers.

The warring sides met for barely an hour in the Turkish city of Istanbul, for only the second such round of negotiations since March 2022.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described it as a great meeting and said he hoped to bring together Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky for a meeting in Turkey with US President Donald Trump.

But there was no breakthrough on a proposed ceasefire that Ukraine, its European allies and Washington have all urged Russia to accept.

Moscow says it seeks a long-term settlement, not a pause in the war, while Kyiv says Putin is not interested in peace.

Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said Russian negotiators had handed their Ukrainian counterparts a detailed memorandum outlining Moscow’s terms for a full ceasefire.

Medinsky, who heads the Russian team, said Moscow had also suggested a “specific ceasefire of two to three days in certain sections of the front” so that the bodies of dead soldiers could be collected.

Each side said it would hand over the bodies of 6,000 dead soldiers to the other.

In addition, they said they would conduct a further big swap of prisoners of war, after 1,000 captives on each side were traded after a first round of talks in Istanbul on May 15.

Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv’s delegation, said the new exchange would focus on those severely injured in the war and on young people.

Umerov also said that Moscow had handed a draft peace accord to Ukraine and that Kyiv — which has drawn up its own version — would review the Russian document.

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 requested the return of a list of children who it said had been deported to Russia.

Moscow says such children were moved to protect them from fighting. Medinsky said there were 339 names on Ukraine’s list but that the children had been “saved”, not stolen.

Low expectations

Ukraine had a day earlier launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war, using drones to target Russian nuclear-capable long-range bomber jets in Siberia and elsewhere.

Angry war bloggers urged Moscow to retaliate strongly.

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 capitulate — 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.

Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war last June: Ukraine must drop its ambitions to join the Western Nato alliance and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions claimed and largely controlled by Russia.

According to a proposed road map drawn up by Ukraine, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Kyiv wants no restrictions on its military strength after any peace deal, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow’s forces, and reparations.

Russia controls just under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100 km2. Putin sent his army into Ukraine on February 24 2022, after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces. Early in 2014, Putin invaded Crimea, which is part of Ukraine, and then annexed it.

The US, which under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden was Ukraine’s main source of advanced weaponry in the war, says more than 1.2-million people have been killed and injured in the conflict since 2022.

Trump has called Putin “crazy” and berated Zelensky in public in the Oval Office, but the US president has also said he thinks peace is achievable and that if Putin delays, the US could impose tough sanctions on Russia.

Reuters