Delegations arrive at the Ciragan Palace for the second meeting between Russian and Ukranian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey, 2 June 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE/ERDEM SAHIN
Delegations from Moscow and Kyiv have sat down for the second round of talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul, one day after Kyiv carried out an unprecedented attack striking nuclear-capable bombers deep within Russian territory, state news agency TASS reported.
As in the previous round, the Russian delegation is led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, while the Ukrainian delegation is headed by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov.
A source told TASS on Sunday that the Russian delegation was in a “working mood regardless of what’s happening in the background”, possibly alluding to the Ukrainian drone strike that destroyed over 40 Russian military aircraft deep inside Russian territory over the weekend, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said would be written about “in history books”.
Medinsky, who reportedly told the Ukrainian delegation during the previous round of talks that Russia was prepared to fight the war “forever”, and threatened that Russian forces would seize the northeastern region of Sumy and the eastern Kharkiv region, said on Monday that Russia had received Ukraine’s draft memorandum for a peace accord, but did not disclose its contents, only saying it was written in Ukrainian and English.
“It’s all right, we made it through. There are people in our delegation who speak all sorts of different languages,” Medinsky told propaganda outlet RT.
According to Kyiv’s roadmap for peace, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Ukraine sees the current location of the frontline as “the starting point for negotiations about territory”, demanding a full ceasefire for at least 30 days, the return of all prisoners held by each side, and a direct meeting between Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.
According to Reuters, Kyiv’s proposals also include no restrictions on Ukraine’s military strength and no international recognition of Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Russia, which is bound to go against Russia’s terms for peace.
Although Moscow has not yet made the contents of its memorandum publicly available, sources in the Ukrainian delegation called the demands made during the previous round of talks “detached from reality”, claiming they went “far beyond” anything previously discussed, including “non-starters” such as ultimatums for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of its own territory in order to obtain a ceasefire.