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Talks in Istanbul end, Ukraine proposes Zelensky-Putin meeting to Russia before the end of August

2025-07-23 23:30:11Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

Talks in Istanbul end, Ukraine proposes Zelensky-Putin meeting to Russia before

Russian and Ukrainian delegates concluded the third set of direct talks in Istanbul "about 40 minutes" after they began, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.

The meeting came days after US President Donald Trump gave Moscow a 50-day deadline to make peace or face "very tough tariffs".

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not publicly accepted Trump's ultimatum, and Moscow has continued to attack Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles, while its ground troops advance east.

The previous two rounds of talks in Istanbul, in May and June, helped facilitate the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war and the mortal remains of dead soldiers, but made little progress toward a possible ceasefire agreement.

Ahead of Wednesday's latest round of talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had sought to downplay expectations, stressing that the two sides' negotiating positions remain "diametrically opposed."

"Nobody expects an easy path. It will be a very difficult discussion," Peskov said on Wednesday. A day earlier, he told reporters not to expect "any miraculous breakthrough."

Peskov confirmed that Moscow's delegation had not changed from previous rounds of talks and was led by Vladimir Medinsky, a former culture minister and now a senior aide to Putin.

Rustem Umerov, Ukraine's former defense minister, led the Kiev delegation after heading the previous two.

Last month, Russian casualties reached a grim milestone, with the UK Ministry of Defence estimating that Putin's war has likely cost Russia more than 1 million casualties since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

This number was followed by an estimate the same month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, which put the death toll at 950,000 and predicted that “Russia is likely to reach 1 million casualties by the summer of 2025.”

Despite these losses, the Russian president has shown few signs of compromising his maximalist war goal of dismantling Ukraine’s sovereignty. In a lengthy essay published months before the full-scale invasion, Putin falsely argued that Russia and Ukraine are one country; his comments suggest to many that the war is being waged to make that a reality.

In addition to Trump's renewed threat of new sanctions on Russia and other countries that buy Russian oil if peace is not reached within 50 days, the US also secured a deal to channel new weapons to Kiev through European allies. The moves were in stark contrast to previous approaches the US leader has taken to the conflict.

Trump's return came after the European Union unveiled a new sanctions package that proposed lowering the maximum price for Russian oil exports and introducing a complete ban on transactions for Russian banks and financial institutions in third countries that help Russia evade existing sanctions.

It is not clear whether Trump's recent decisions will change Moscow's approach, but his change of stance could provide a much-needed boost to Ukraine's military coffers and signal his growing frustration with Putin.

"My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles explode at night," Trump explained last week.

Ahead of the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his call for a direct meeting with Putin, saying only a meeting of the two leaders could end the war.


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