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Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a brand new prisoner swap and the return of hundreds of useless troopers throughout direct talks in Istanbul, though little headway was made in direction of ending the conflict.
The rival delegations met on Monday on the Ottoman-era Ciragan Palace within the Turkish metropolis, and officers confirmed that each side will exchange prisoners of war and the stays of 6,000 troopers killed in fight.
The Istanbul assembly, which lasted lower than two hours, marked the second time the warring international locations have convened for direct talks in lower than a month, however expectations have been low amid current navy escalations from each side.
The primary spherical of direct talks on Could 16 additionally ended with out a breakthrough, however the two sides agreed on a prisoner swap.
“The change of prisoners appears to be the diplomatic channel that really works between Russia and Ukraine,” Al Jazeera correspondent Dmitry Medvedenko mentioned, reporting from Istanbul.
“We’ve really had exchanges of prisoners throughout this war, not within the numbers which have been occurring on account of these Istanbul talks,” Medvedenko added.
Prisoner change
Negotiators from each international locations confirmed that that they had reached a deal to swap all severely wounded troopers in addition to all captured fighters beneath the age of 25.
“We agreed to change all-for-all significantly wounded and significantly sick prisoners of conflict. The second class is younger troopers who’re from 18 to 25 years outdated – all for all,” Ukraine’s lead negotiator and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov advised reporters in Istanbul.
Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, mentioned the swap would contain “no less than 1,000” on all sides – topping the 1,000 for 1,000 POW change agreed at talks in Could.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talking from Vilnius, Lithuania, mentioned the 2 events “exchanged paperwork by means of the Turkish facet” and Kyiv was getting ready for the following group of captives to be launched.
He additionally mentioned his negotiators had given their Russian counterparts a listing of almost 400 kidnapped Ukrainian kids that Kyiv wished Moscow to return residence, however that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning solely 10 of them.
Restricted or unconditional ceasefire?
As for a truce, Russia and Ukraine stay sharply divided.
“The Russian facet continued to reject the movement of an unconditional ceasefire,” Ukrainian Deputy International Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya advised reporters after the talks.
For its half, Russia mentioned it had supplied a restricted pause in combating.
“We’ve proposed a particular ceasefire for 2 to a few days in sure areas of the entrance line,” Russia’s lead negotiator Medinsky mentioned, including that this was wanted to gather the our bodies of useless troopers from battlefields.
Nonetheless, Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament, advised Al Jazeera he was not very optimistic concerning the talks in Istanbul.
“Russia clearly reveals that they don’t need to finish the conflict as a result of Ukraine proposed a 30-days ceasefire in March, and the American and Europe proposition was the identical, however just one nation [Russia] refused,” Goncharenko mentioned.
In the meantime, Ukraine has ramped up its navy efforts far past the entrance traces, claiming duty for drone assaults on Sunday that it mentioned broken or destroyed greater than 40 Russian warplanes.
The operation efficiently targeted airbases in three distant areas – the Arctic, Siberia and the Far East – hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine.
Zelenskyy mentioned the setback for Russia’s navy would improve stress on Moscow to return to the negotiating desk.
Russia’s new ‘memorandum’
On the negotiating desk, Russia offered a memorandum setting out the Kremlin’s phrases for ending hostilities, the Ukrainian delegation mentioned.
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Umerov advised reporters that Kyiv officers would want per week to overview the doc and determine on a response.
After the talks, Russian state information companies TASS and RIA Novosti revealed the textual content of the Russian memorandum, which urged as a situation for a ceasefire that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the 4 Ukrainian areas that Russia annexed in September 2022 however by no means totally captured.
As an alternate method of reaching a truce, the memorandum presses Ukraine to halt its mobilisation efforts and freeze Western arms deliveries, situations that have been urged earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The doc additionally means that Ukraine cease any redeployment of forces and ban any navy presence of third international locations on its soil as situations for halting hostilities.
The Russian doc additional proposes that Ukraine finish martial legislation and maintain elections, after which the 2 international locations may signal a complete peace treaty that may see Ukraine declare its impartial standing, abandon its bid to hitch NATO, set limits on the scale of its armed forces and recognise Russian because the nation’s official language on par with Ukrainian.
Ukraine and the West have beforehand rejected all these calls for from Moscow.
Wanting forward, Ukraine has proposed additional talks on a date between June 20 and June 30. Zelenskyy has repeatedly mentioned he is able to meet with Putin.
Andrey Fedorov, a former deputy international minister of Russia, says little progress was made in Monday’s talks and the rival sides are nonetheless at odds on key factors.
“All the principle political questions have been left unopened,” he advised Al Jazeera, including that whereas each side offered the opposite with memorandums for peace proposals, they have been “very contradictory to one another”.
Trump prepared to hitch Putin, Zelenskyy
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan referred to as the talks “magnificent”.
“My biggest want is to convey collectively Putin and Zelenskyy in Istanbul or Ankara and even add [United States President Donald] Trump alongside,” he mentioned.
Each Trump and Putin have mentioned for months they’re keen to satisfy one another, however no date has been set.
White Home spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on Monday mentioned that Trump was “open” to a leader-level assembly with Zelenskyy and Putin. Trump is “open to it and needs leaders to take a seat down on the desk”, Leavitt mentioned replying to a query.
Trump, after piling heavy stress on Ukraine and clashing with Zelenskyy within the Oval Workplace in February, has recently expressed rising impatience that Putin could also be “tapping me alongside.”
“Nothing’s going to occur till Putin and I get collectively,” Trump advised reporters on board Air Drive One on Could 15.
Then, on Could 26, Trump described Putin as “absolutely crazy” after Moscow launched its largest aerial assault of the conflict on Ukraine, killing no less than 13 folks.
Since returning to the White Home in January, Trump’s unpredictability has typically provoked dismay from Ukraine and its European allies.
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