After more than three years of war, Moscow and Kyiv are engaged in direct and public discussions to end the fighting, but their positions remain far apart.
A day after exchanging some of the most intense air attacks of the war, Russia and Ukraine were set to meet in Istanbul on Monday for peace talks, discussions that will be complicated by their entrenched positions and the situation on the battlefield.
Russia and Ukraine are expected to formally exchange their respective conditions for a deal in the second round of negotiations since the two sides resumed direct dialogue two weeks ago.
Expectations are low for the talks, which were expected to kick off in the early afternoon local time at a five-star hotel on the European shore of the Bosporus. By 1 p.m. in Turkey, both delegations had arrived at the hotel.
Moscow and Kyiv are talking under pressure from President Trump, who has alternatively cajoled and chided both countries’ leaders. But Russia and Ukraine have been holding firm, with neither expected to present conditions in the discussion that are acceptable to the other side.
As negotiations sputter, attacks on the battlefield have intensified. The Russian army appears to have launched a new offensive, advancing at the fastest pace since last fall and opening a new front in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine. It has also bombarded Ukrainian cities with some of the biggest drone and missile attacks of the war, including a barrage of 500 drones and decoys on Sunday.
Ukraine, for its part, has adapted and evolved in the face of a much larger military with deeper resources. Ukrainian drones, in an ambitious, coordinated attack, struck air bases deep inside Russia this weekend.
Attacks Across Russia
That assault, which Moscow said damaged several aircraft, was described as “a black day for Russian long-range aviation” by a prominent, pro-Kremlin Russian military blogger. The full extent of the damage has yet to be assessed.
The talks, the first since the early months of the war in 2022, have been clouded by political theatrics. Ukraine and Russia have attempted to set the tempo and terms of the talks without angering the White House, which has threatened to withdraw from the negotiations to end the war.
President Trump has accused both sides of intransigence, trying to pressure them into negotiations. Last week, following a Russian attack on Kyiv, Mr. Trump lashed out at President Vladimir V. Putin, describing him on social media as having “gone absolutely CRAZY.” Mr. Trump said that he was considering imposing additional sanctions on Moscow, but has not acted so far.
During the first round of talks in Istanbul in mid-May, top U.S. officials met with the Ukrainians and Russians separately, but left it to Turkey to mediate direct talks, making for a complicated diplomatic dance.
Afterward, the Ukrainians accused the Russians of issuing threats and provocations by saying they were ready to fight for many years and invade more Ukrainian regions. The Russian delegation exuded confidence, saying that they were “satisfied with the results” of the talks, which they described as “organized at the initiative of Russia’s President.”
In recent days, President Volodymyr Zelensky dampened expectations for the new round of discussions, confirming only on Sunday afternoon that a Ukrainian delegation would travel to Istanbul.
He said on Monday that Kyiv’s delegation was “ready to take the necessary steps for peace” with Russia. In remarks from Lithuania ahead of a NATO meeting, Mr. Zelensky said that those steps should begin with “a cease-fire and humanitarian actions, the release of prisoners and the return of abducted children.”
But if the Istanbul talks yield nothing, Mr. Zelensky added, “strong, new sanctions are urgently, urgently needed” from the European Union and from the United States.
Kyiv’s goal remains to secure a cease-fire first, before moving to negotiations for a broader peace deal. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, said its proposals included provisions for a cease-fire on land, at sea and in the air, with monitoring to be carried out by international partners.
Russia has signaled that it was not interested in a temporary cease-fire, but rather in solving the “root causes” of the war — Kremlin parlance for wide-ranging demands like a formal commitment to not expand NATO eastward, the recognition of its territorial gains and other conditions that have been flatly rejected by Kyiv.
Unlike Ukraine, Russia did not share its proposals beforehand, saying it would only do so directly at the Istanbul meeting. Ukrainian officials criticized such an arrangement, saying that it would prevent a meaningful dialogue.
As with the first Istanbul meeting, the composition of the delegations — mostly government officials with limited political leverage — suggested that Monday’s discussions would remain technical in nature. The previous meeting yielded a large prisoner exchange but little else.
Mr. Zelensky approved a 14-member delegation led by Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, including senior government officials and deputy heads of branches of Ukraine’s military and security services.
Russia’s delegation is led by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Mr. Putin. After the previous round of talks, Mr. Medinsky, a conservative historian, told Russian state television that “as a rule, as Napoleon said, war and negotiations take place at the same time.”
Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, said last week that security advisers from the United States and various European countries would also attend the talks, but he did not specify who. On Monday, it was not immediately clear if any American representatives had arrived in Istanbul.
Steven Erlanger contributed reporting.