ISTANBUL: Russia told Ukraine at peace talks on Monday that it would only agree to end the war if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army, according to a memorandum reported by Russian media, as quoted by Rueters.
The terms, formally presented at negotiations in Istanbul, highlighted Moscow’s refusal to compromise on its longstanding war goals despite calls by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the “bloodbath” in Ukraine.
Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the Russian conditions as tantamount to surrender.
At talks in Istanbul on Monday, delegations from the warring countries agreed to swap dead and wounded troops. But their terms for ending the war remained far apart.
The war has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly 1,000-km front line where the war of attrition is grinding on despite US-led efforts to broker a peace deal.
Though Russia has a bigger army and more economic resources than Ukraine, a spectacular Ukrainian drone attack that Ukrainian officials said damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia was a serious blow to the Kremlin’s strategic arsenal and its military prestige. Both Zelenskyy and Putin have been eager to show US President Donald Trump that they share his ambition to end the fighting, thereby aiming to avoid possible punitive measures from Washington.
Ukraine has accepted a US-proposed ceasefire, but the Kremlin effectively rejected it. Putin has made it clear that any peace settlement has to be on his terms.
A senior Ukrainian delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko has travelled to Washington for talks about defense, sanctions and postwar recovery, Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said Tuesday.
The delegation will meet with representatives from both major US political parties, as well as with advisors to Trump, Yermak added.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who now serves as deputy head of the country’s Security Council chaired by Putin, indicated Tuesday there would be no let-up in Russia’s invasion of its neighbour. “The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction of (Ukraine’s government),” he said. In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes, he declared that “retribution is inevitable”. “Our army is pushing forward and will continue to advance,” Medvedev said, adding that “everything that needs to be blown up will be blown up, and those who must be eliminated will be.”
Ukrainians on the streets of Kyiv welcomed their country’s stunning drone strike on Russian air bases but were gloomy about the chances for a peace agreement.