Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking on the NATO summit in Vilnius on Monday, mentioned Russia and Kyiv delight in agreed to free extra prisoners of war.
The agreement emerged on the second spherical of thunder peace talks which took position within the Turkish city of Istanbul, the build the 2 sides met for appropriate over an hour.
They agreed to swap 6,000 bodies of squaddies killed in motion and an “engrossing about all’ alternate of seriously wounded and ill squaddies, and young squaddies beneath the age of 25.
But the talks delivered no vital leap forward in peace efforts.
In a gathering that newest appropriate over an hour, Russia all every other time rejected a key Ukrainian query for an unconditional ceasefire.
Speaking ahead of the talks, Zelenskyy mentioned Kyiv’s delegation used to be ready to take the required steps for peace.
“Naturally the launch line ought to be a ceasefire and humanitarian actions, the delivery of prisoners and the return of abducted teenagers,” he mentioned.
He added that every key factors would possibly maybe maybe well additionally “be resolved on the stage of leaders”.
Zelensky reiterated the need for a new situation of sanctions to strain President Vladimir Putin into agreeing to a ceasefire.
The Ukrainian delegation used to be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, whereas Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, headed the Kremlin team.
“Our proposal is an unconditional ceasefire in the air, sea, and land, at least for 30 days. This position has remained unchanged for three months,” Umerov mentioned after the talks.
He mentioned that Russia handed over a memorandum to Ukraine at some level of the meeting and that it would take one week for Kyiv to overview it and judge on additional steps.
There used to be also no signal of progress on Kyiv’s query for a gathering between presidents Zelensky and Putin.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned his country would are trying to facilitate a gathering between the 2 leaders.
Monday’s peace talks came after the 2 countries traded in a single day assaults. Kyiv officials mentioned a shock drone assault on Sunday broken or destroyed greater than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inner Russia.
The Institute for the See of Warfare, a Washington-essentially based mostly mediate tank, mentioned Sunday that “Russia is attempting to prolong negotiations and lengthen the war in tell to originate extra battlefield beneficial properties.”