Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said Moscow proposed a partial ceasefire of “two to three days” at the talks in Istanbul. He told reporters that the proposed ceasefire would apply to certain areas of the front line to allow commanders to collect the bodies of their soldiers.
Trump's getting bored and tired that his engagement with Russian Prez Putin is not working.
It comes after Ukraine said Russia rejected its offer of an unconditional ceasefire.
Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov said officials would need a week to review Russia’s memorandum and decide on a response. Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, said Kyiv was proposing further talks sometime between 20 and 30 June, but he added that Kyiv believes only a meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin can resolve the many issues of contention.
Umerov said the “only real progress” from the talks was reaching an agreement on releasing prisoners.
The delegations agreed to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action and to set up a commission to exchange seriously wounded troops. Zelenskiy said Ukraine presented a list of 400 children it says have been abducted to Russia, but that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning only 10 of them.
Delegations in Istanbul agree swap of at least 1,000 prisoners, and Ukraine says Russia agreed to return some abducted children
At the talks and later, Ukrainian officials said that the focus of the prisoner exchange should be the wounded and sick as well as young soldiers between 18 and 25 years old.
Russian officials confirmed that “all” sick and wounded prisoners would be swapped, and that the exchange would involve at least 1,000 PoWs.
At the much awaited meeting in Istanbul, Ukrainian officials said that the Russians rejected Kyiv’s call for an unconditional ceasefire of at least a month, but had instead handed over a written proposal which the Ukrainians said they would need more time to study before responding. They suggested the talks should reconvene towards the end of June.
The Russian state news agency, RIA, said the Russian document proposed two options for a ceasefire, one of which would require Ukraine to begin a complete withdrawal of its troops from four of its regions occupied by Russia.
RIA described the second option only as a “package” containing a number of unspecified conditions.
If Putin is prepared to see things clearly, this should be an incentive for him to engage more seriously. But, Russians and Ukrainians are very far from an agreement. There's no common language right now. They are talking about prisoners' exchange, but that was done earlier and should not be a cause for sudden optimism.
US President Donald Trump, who famously claimed that he would end the Ukraine war in "24 hours" during his re-election campaign, was increasingly frustrated with Putin over his non-commitment to agree to a ceasefire.
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