More than three years after the most deadly war in Europe since 1945, there was a small step forward for democracy on Friday.
The delegations of Ukraine and Russia found themselves face to face for talks for the first time since March 2022 – a month after Moscow invaded its neighbor. The frame was an Ottoman palace on the banks of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.
The pressure and encouragement of Turkey and the United States helped the parties at war.
There were no hand handles and half of the Ukrainian delegation wore military camouflage fatigue – a reminder that their nation is attacked.
The room was decorated with Ukrainian, Turkish and Russian flags – two of each – and a large floral arrangement – a world far from broken cities and swollen cemeteries from Ukraine.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told delegations that there were two to come – a road leading to peace, and the other leading to more death and destruction.
The talks lasted less than two hours and net divisions quickly emerged. The Kremlin has made “new and unacceptable requests”, according to a Ukrainian official. This included the insistence of kyiv withdraw his troops from large parts of his own territory, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.
Although there was no breakthrough on the crucial question of a truce – as expected – there are news of a tangible result.
Each party will send 1,000 prisoners of war to another.
“It was the very good end of a very difficult day,” said Ukrainian defense defense, Serhiy Kyslysya, and “potentially excellent news for 1,000 Ukrainian families”.
The exchange will take place soon, said the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, who led the delegation of his country. “We know the date,” he said, “we haven’t announced it yet.”
He said that “the next step” should be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin.
This request was “noted” according to the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky – a presidential assistant. He said that the Russian delegation was satisfied with talks and ready to continue to contact.
He said that the Russian delegation was satisfied with talks and ready to continue to contact.
It was a change on Thursday when the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called President Zelensky “a clown and a loser”.
But there are fears – among Ukraine and some of its allies – that Russia engages in diplomacy simply to buy time, to distract international pressure for a ceasefire and to try to light the 18th cycle of European sanctions. The EU says they are already in preparation.
And while the two parties have now been seated around the table, President Trump said that the only talks that count will be those between him and President Putin.
He announced Thursday, halfway on Air Force One, that “nothing will happen until Putin and I gathered”.
We don’t know when this meeting is. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says that high-level discussions are “certainly necessary”, but the preparation of a summit will take time.
Whenever these interviews occur, President Zelensky is unlikely to be invited.
