RussiaUkraine

It took three years to get officials from Ukraine and Russia in the same room.

But President Vladimir Putin, who proposed the meeting, did not go to Istanbul and the talks ended in less than 90 minutes.

The result: an agreement for a large-scale prisoner exchange, talks about their presidents meeting, and both sides pushing their vision of a future ceasefire.

Yet, diplomacy is not narrowing the great gap between Russia and Ukraine.

So, is President Putin agreeing to further talks to avoid more sanctions?

And with Russia steadily advancing on the battlefield, can President Zelenskyy afford to push for peace without further compromise?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Peter Zalmayev – Executive director at Eurasia Democracy Initiative

Pavel Felgenhauer – Independent defence and Russian foreign policy analyst

Anatol Lieven – Director of the Eurasia Program at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

The drone strike in the Sumy region amounts to ‘a cynical war crime’, Ukraine’s National Police say.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for tougher sanctions on Moscow after a Russian drone killed nine bus passengers, just hours after the two countries held their first direct peace talks in years.

Seven others were injured in the attack in Bilopillia in Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy, Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Saturday.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had targeted Ukrainian military equipment, the TASS news agency reported. Russia denies targeting civilians since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, although thousands have been killed.

“All the deceased were civilians,” Zelenskyy said, adding that preliminary reports indicated a father, mother and daughter had been killed. “And the Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting. This was a deliberate killing of civilians.”

He said the wounded had suffered burns, fractures, and blast injuries, and were receiving treatment in hospital.

The Ukrainian leader said he expected tougher sanctions from Ukraine’s partners to pressure Moscow “to stop the killings”, which came shortly after Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul on Friday to to attempt to broker a temporary ceasefire.

“Without tougher sanctions, without stronger pressure, Russia will not seek real diplomacy,” he said. “This must change.”

He said Russia had sent “a weak and unprepared” delegation to Istanbul without a meaningful mandate, and real steps were needed to end the war.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha denounced the attack as an “deliberate and barbaric war crime”, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of continuing “to wage a war against civilians” and calling for additional pressure on Russia.

“There should be no illusions. Pressure on Moscow must be increased to put an end to Russian terror,” Sybiha wrote.

No breakthrough

The 90-minute talks in Istanbul on Friday failed to reach a breakthrough, but ended with both sides agreeing to swap 1,000 prisoners in what would be the largest such exchange since the start of the war in 2022.

Vladimir Medinsky, the lead Russian negotiator, expressed satisfaction with the talks and said Moscow was ready for further negotiations, including on a ceasefire. “We have agreed that all sides will present their views on a possible ceasefire and set them out in detail,” he said after the meeting.

But a source in the Ukrainian delegation told Reuters news agency that Russia’s demands were “detached from reality and go far beyond anything that was previously discussed”.

The source told the agency Russia had issued ultimatums for Ukraine to withdraw from all parts of its own territory claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire, “and other non-starters”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday said Putin could meet with Zelenskyy – the first time such a meeting would have taken place since December 2019 – but only if certain agreements were reached. He did not elaborate on what would be required.

Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, British foreign minister David Lammy accused Moscow of obfuscating in its approach to the peace talks.

“Yet again we are seeing obfuscation on the Russian side and unwillingness to get serious about the enduring peace that is now required in Ukraine,” said Lammy. “Once again Russia is not serious.”

Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Kyiv, said Medinsky, Russia’s lead negotiator, had sent a clear message during the negotiations that Moscow was ready to continue the war for years – and had no problem in continuing to conduct the war at the same time as it held talks.

“And that is exactly what they have done,” said Basravi, adding that the destroyed vehicle in Bilopillia had been evacuating residents from a conflict zone, according to Ukraine.

These are the key events on day 1,178 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Saturday, May 17:

Fighting

• Russia is preparing for a new military offensive in Ukraine, the Ukrainian government and Western military analysts said, as Russia’s Defence Minister Andrei Belousov was in Minsk on Friday to discuss joint military drills in September and deliveries of new weapons to Belarus.
• A drone attack on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk killed a 55-year-old woman and wounded four men, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces seized six settlements in eastern Ukraine over the past week. According to a ministry statement, Russian troops advanced in the Donetsk region and took control of Torske, Kotlyarivka, Myrolyubivka, Mykhailivka​​​​​​, Novooleksandrivka, and Vilne Pole settlements, Tukiye’s Anadolu news agency reports.

• The Russian Defence Ministry released a video showing Russian forces raising the Russian flag in the settlement of Mykhailivka.
• A court in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region sentenced Australian national Oscar Charles Augustus Jenkins to 13 years in jail at a high-security penal colony for fighting on behalf of Ukraine, Anadolu reports.

Ceasefire

• The first direct Russia-Ukraine dialogue in three years on Friday produced good results, Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy, said late on Friday. “1. Largest POW exchange 2. Ceasefire options that may work 3. Understanding of positions and continued dialogue,” Dmitriev said on the social media platform X.
• Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said following the talks that some 1,000 prisoners from each side will be swapped “in the near future”, in the largest exchange since the start of the war in 2022.
• Umerov led the Ukrainian delegation, which ended after 90 minutes in Istanbul, while Putin’s adviser, Vladimir Medinsky, negotiated on behalf of Russia. The United States delegation was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
• Medinsky, who was the lead Russian negotiator, expressed satisfaction with the talks and said Moscow was ready for further negotiations, including on a ceasefire. “We have agreed that all sides will present their views on a possible ceasefire and set them out in detail,” Medinsky said after the meeting.

• A source in the Ukrainian delegation told the Reuters news agency that Russia’s demands were “detached from reality and go far beyond anything that was previously discussed”. The source said Moscow had issued ultimatums for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of its own territory in order to obtain a ceasefire “and other non-starters and non-constructive conditions”.
• Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who opened the talks by welcoming both delegations and calling for a swift ceasefire, served as a buffer between the negotiating tables in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed regret after the talks at what he called a missed opportunity for peace. “This week, we had a real chance to move towards ending the war – if only Putin hadn’t been afraid to come to Turkiye,” Zelenskyy posted on X from the sidelines of a European Political Community (EPC) summit in Albania.
• Zelenskyy, who did not attend the talks, said he had been “ready for a direct meeting with him [Putin] to resolve all key issues”, but “he didn’t agree to anything”.
• US President Donald Trump, who has pressed for an end to the conflict, said he would meet with Putin “as soon as we can set it up” in a bid to make progress in the peace talks. “I think it’s time for us to just do it,” Trump told reporters in Abu Dhabi as he wrapped up a trip to the Middle East.

• Zelenskyy was in Tirana, Albania, on Friday with European leaders to discuss security, defence and democratic standards against the backdrop of the war. He held a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
• European leaders also agreed to press ahead with joint action against Russia over the failure in Turkiye to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, Prime Minister Starmer said after consultations with President Trump.
• Starmer said after the talks that the Russian position was “clearly unacceptable” and that European leaders, Ukraine and the US were “closely aligning” their responses.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced new plans for additional sanctions on Moscow after Putin failed to travel to Turkiye to negotiate with Ukraine.
• US senators renewed calls on Friday for Congress to pass sanctions on Russia after Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks showed little progress, but no votes were scheduled on bills introduced six weeks ago aimed at pressuring Moscow to negotiate seriously.

Regional security

• Russia and Belarus are preparing a new, large military manoeuvre together, the Belarusian state agency BelTA reports. “We plan to jointly develop measures to counter aggression against the Union State,” Defence Minister Belousov said during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, in Minsk, according to BelTA. The Union State combines Russia and Belarus.
• The exercise, dubbed Zapad-2025, or West-2025 in English, will be the main event of the combat training of the regional troop formations, he said. The manoeuvre is planned for mid-September, according to the agency.

Economy and trade

• Russia’s economic growth slowed to 1.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, the lowest quarterly figure in two years, data from the official state statistics agency showed on Friday.
• Economists have warned for months of a slowdown in the Russian economy, with falling oil prices, high interest rates and a downturn in manufacturing all contributing to headwinds. Moscow reported strong economic growth in 2023 and 2024, largely due to massive state defence spending on the Ukraine conflict.
• The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), which represents the democratic countries bordering the Baltic Sea, called for new shipping rules to allow for stronger joint action against Russia’s so-called shadow fleet.

European leaders speak to US president after Russia-Ukraine talks fail to achieve major breakthrough.

European leaders have agreed to step up joint action against Russia over its failure to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine at a meeting on Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, following talks with United States President Donald Trump.

As the Russia-Ukraine talks concluded in Istanbul on Friday, Starmer and fellow leaders from France, Germany and Poland – together with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – called the US president from a summit in Albania to discuss “developments” in the negotiations, Starmer said.

The talks in Istanbul were the first direct talks between officials from the rwo sides for more than three years. They lasted less than two hours, and the sides agreed to the biggest prisoner exchange since the start of the war in 2022, but failed to make a major breakthrough on a ceasefire.

“We just had a meeting with President Zelenskyy and then a phone call with President Trump to discuss the developments in the negotiations today,” Starmer said from Albania’s capital, Tirana, where leaders of dozens of European countries were gathered for the European Political Community summit.

“And the Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.

“So as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskyy and that call with President Trump, we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.”

French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that if Putin continued to reject a ceasefire, “we will need to have a response and therefore escalate sanctions”, which, he said, were being “reworked” by European nations and the US.

EU eyes Russia’s shadow fleet

Macron said it was too early to provide details on the “reworked” sanctions, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to “increase the pressure”.

She said on Friday that the measures would target the shadow fleet of ageing cargo vessels that Russia is using to bypass international sanctions and the Nord Stream pipeline consortium. Russia’s financial sector would also be targeted.

Earlier, Zelenskyy had said that Ukraine was committed to ending the war, but urged the European leaders to ramp up sanctions “against Russia’s energy sector and banks” if Putin continued to drag his feet in talks.

“I think Putin made a mistake by sending a low-level delegation,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said as he arrived at the Tirana summit. “The ball is clearly in his part of the field now, in his court. He has to play ball. He has to be serious about wanting peace.”

Ukraine and Russia agreed to a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner swap — the war’s largest — during their first direct peace talks in three years, in Istanbul. Kyiv is now pushing for a Zelensky-Putin summit and a clear ceasefire plan.

Reporters Without Borders and Truth Hounds found that Russia’s attacks on hotels intended to ‘discourage’ war coverage.

Russian attacks have increasingly hit hotels hosting journalists in Ukraine, in what could constitute “war crimes”, according to a new report.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Truth Hounds – a Ukrainian organisation founded to document war crimes – released the report on Friday. It found that Russian attacks on hotels housing journalists moved from being “isolated events” early in the conflict in 2022 to a “sustained threat” by 2025.

At least 31 strikes on 25 hotels being used by journalists have been recorded since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, the report states.

“These attacks appear to be part of a broader Russian strategy aimed at intimidating journalists and suppressing independent media coverage of Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” the report said.

The hotels hit are mainly close to the front line. Only one was being used for military purposes at the time of the attack, the NGOs said.

“In total, 25 journalists and media professionals have found themselves under these hotel bombings, and at least seven have been injured,” it stated.

According to the RSF, at least 13 journalists have been killed while covering Russia’s war on Ukraine, with 12 of the deaths on Ukrainian territory.

Types of attacks

The report highlighted that the attacks followed a clear pattern, occurring at night, using ballistic missiles launched at civilian hotels that were not “legitimate military targets”.

“Our analysis therefore suggests that these attacks are neither random nor incidental but are instead part of a broader strategy aimed at discouraging independent reporting from the front line,” the authors concluded.

Due to the safety obstacles to reporting from a war zone, 13 percent of respondents to a survey said there had been a “reduction” in assignments to high-risk areas, affecting how the war is covered.

The report called for legal measures to prosecute crimes against journalists at “national and international jurisdictions”, specifically the International Criminal Court.

These are the key events on day 1,177 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Friday, May 16 :

Fighting

• Fighting continues along the 1,100km (683 mile) front line, where Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces captured two settlements located near Moscow’s long-term targets. Russia claimed to have taken Novooleksandrivka, a rural village near Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as the town of Torske, which is located near the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
• The Ukrainian military acknowledged that Novooleksandrivka had been under attack, but it did not mention Torske in its latest report.
• Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top military commander, said on Telegram that Russia “has turned its aggression against Ukraine into a war of attrition and is using a combined force of up to 640,000 troops”.
• Ukraine lost its first F-16 fighter jet on Friday due to an “unusual situation on board”, but the pilot successfully ejected, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

Ceasefire

• Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian envoys will hold trilateral talks in Istanbul, although hopes are low for any breakthrough after Russia sent a lower-level delegation to the meeting than hoped. The meeting marks the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine since a meeting in 2022 also held in Istanbul.
• Turkiye will take part in two trilateral meetings on Friday as part of the renewed diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources told the Reuters news agency.
• A meeting will take place between Turkish, US and Ukrainian officials and is scheduled to take place at 10:45am local time [07:45 GMT], followed by talks between Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian delegations at 12:30pm [09:30 GMT], the sources told Reuters.
• The Ukrainian delegation will now be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov instead of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday.
• “We can’t be running around the world looking for Putin,” Zelenskyy said after a meeting with Erdogan. “I feel disrespect from Russia. No meeting time, no agenda, no high-level delegation – this is personal disrespect. To Erdogan, to Trump.”
• US President Donald Trump said an agreement between Russia and Ukraine is not possible without him first meeting Putin. “I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Putin’s absence casts doubt on peace talks in Turkiye, raising concerns about potential intensified sanctions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is sending a team headed by his defence minister to Istanbul for the first direct talks with a Russian delegation since the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Zelenskyy announced the move on Thursday after the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no intention to meet with him in Turkiye, sending instead a junior delegation – a move that Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said was “like a slap in the face”.

The Ukrainian president said in a news conference in the Turkish capital, Ankara, that the Russian delegation doesn’t include “anyone who actually makes decisions”, accusing Moscow of not making efforts to end the war.

The Ukrainian delegation will be headed by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov with the aim “to attempt at least the first steps toward de-escalation, the first steps toward ending the war – namely, a ceasefire”, he said.

It was not immediately clear when the delegations would meet.

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Ankara, said Zelenskyy chose a delegation “in equilibrium” with the Russian one.

“He said they didn’t mind taking the first step towards an immediate ceasefire that is necessary for direct peace talks,” she said.

Still, “there won’t be any negotiations, and Zelenskyy underlined that even his delegation has no mandate to decide anything. So tomorrow, it is probably going to be technical talks between the two delegations,” she added.

US President Trump, who had pressed for Putin and Zelenskyy to meet face-to-face in Istanbul, brushed off Putin’s absence from the talks.

“Nothing’s going to happen until Russian President Vladimir Putin and I get together, OK?” Trump said on board Air Force One just before landing in Dubai on the third stop of his Middle East trip. “I didn’t think it was possible for Putin to go if I’m not there.”

Putin’s absence punctured hopes of a breakthrough in ceasefire efforts that were given a push in recent months by the Trump administration and Western European leaders amid the intense manoeuvring. It also raised the prospect of intensified international sanctions on Russia that have been threatened by the West.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier welcomed Zelenskyy with an honour guard at the presidential palace in Ankara before the two held talks.

“Now, after three years of immense suffering, there is finally a window of opportunity,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a NATO meeting taking place separately in Turkiye. “The talks … hopefully may open a new chapter.”

Brussels is drawing up plans to use trade tariffs and capital controls to maintain financial pressure on Russia, even if Hungary decides to use its veto to block an extension of the European Union’s sanctions regime, which lapses in July of this year.

The European Commission has told ministers that a large part of the EU’s sanctions, which included freezing 200 billion euros ($224bn) of Russian assets, could be adapted to a new legal framework to bypass Budapest’s veto, according to the United Kingdom’s Financial Times newspaper.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, has repeatedly held up EU boycotts on Moscow as the central European country gets 85 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Orban’s nationalist government is also one of the most friendly to Moscow in all of Europe.

In any event, the EU’s recent proposals have emerged as Moscow and Kyiv hold their first direct peace talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian and Russian representatives are convening today in Istanbul, Turkiye. However, Vladimir Putin will not travel to Istanbul for face-to-face talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Last weekend, European leaders held talks in Ukraine to put pressure on Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in the run-up to the Istanbul talks. Ukraine agreed to it. Russia did not.

What sanctions does the EU currently have in place against Russia?

The EU adopted its 17th sanctions package against Moscow, designed to stifle Russia’s economy and force President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, on Wednesday. This package has been signed off by Budapest and will be formally ratified by the European Commission next week.

Brussels has progressively expanded sanctions against Moscow since 2022, introducing import bans on Russian oil, a price cap on Russian fuel and the freezing of Russian central bank assets held in European financial institutions.

Vast swaths of Russia’s economy – from media organisations to aviation and telecommunications – are now under EU restrictions, in addition to trade bans and measures targeting oligarchs and politicians.

Under the 17th package, some 200 “shadow fleet” tankers have been sanctioned. These are ships with opaque ownership and no Western ties in terms of finance or insurance, allowing them to bypass financial sanctions.

The latest sanctions will also target Chinese and Turkish entities that the EU says are helping Russia to evade embargoes. New restrictions will be imposed on 30 companies involved in the trade of dual-use goods – products with potential military applications.

“Russia has found ways to circumvent the blockage imposed by Europe and the United States, so closing the tap would grab Russia by the throat,” France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, told BFM TV.

How effective are sanctions?

Alongside military support for Kyiv, sanctions have been the EU’s main response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But sanctions have so far failed to stop the war. What’s more, due to high oil prices and elevated military spending, Russia’s economy has outperformed expectations since the start of 2022.

Barrot acknowledged on Wednesday that the impact of sanctions has been insufficient. “We will need to go further because the sanctions so far have not dissuaded Vladimir Putin from continuing his war of aggression … we must prepare to expand devastating sanctions that could suffocate, once and for all, Russia’s economy,” said Barrot.

What new measures are being proposed?

While the 17th round of sanctions was only agreed on Wednesday, EU ministers are already considering what more might be done to undermine Putin’s political clout if the war in Ukraine persists.

Capital controls, which would be aimed at restricting money flowing in and out of Russia, and trade measures such as tariffs, are two options that have been mentioned by the European Commission in recent weeks. Capital controls can take a variety of forms, including restrictions on foreign investment, limiting currency exchange or imposing taxes on the movement of capital.

The commission also aims to share proposals next month that would allow Brussels to implement a ban on new Russian gas spot market contracts – deals for immediate delivery and payment – with European companies in 2025, and a total phase-out by 2027.

Despite oil export restrictions, Russia still earns billions of euros from natural gas sales into the EU through liquefied natural gas (LNG) and TurkStream (a pipeline connecting Russia to southeastern Europe via the Black Sea). Banning spot market contracts would lower Moscow’s revenue from these sources.

Brussels may also propose tariffs on enriched uranium as part of its effort to cut EU reliance on Russian fuels.

According to The Financial Times, the EU insists that these measures would not amount to sanctions and therefore would not need the unanimous backing of all 27 EU countries, which is normally required to extend sanctions.

“I think the EU cooked up these potential punishments to try and get Russia to agree to the 30-day ceasefire … it was the stick they were brandishing,” said an analyst familiar with the matter who asked not to be named.

Will the US impose more sanctions?

It may. On May 1, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he had the commitment of 72 colleagues for a bill that would enact “bone-crushing” sanctions on Russia.

Graham, a close ally of President Donald Trump, is spearheading a draft bill that seeks to impose a 500 percent tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian oil and fossil fuels.

Trump himself, who seemingly welcomes the possibility of a rapprochement with Russia, said in March that he was “considering” imposing sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a peace agreement is reached with Ukraine.

Could such measures force Putin to the negotiating table?

“Most Russian people want life to return to normal and business owners are getting tired of war-related costs,” the anonymous analyst told Al Jazeera. “There is a growing sense of unease.”

She said she doubted whether the EU’s touted measures would bring Putin any closer to signing a peace agreement, however. “Only because sanctions haven’t been able to do that,” she said, “and there’s already a maze of them.”

According to Castellum.AI, a global risk platform, Russia has been slapped with 21,692 sanctions since the start of the war – the majority of them against individuals.

“On past performance, it’s hard to see how even more sanctions and additional punishments will stop the fighting,” the analyst said.

She estimated a 60 percent chance that Russia and Ukraine would still be at war by the end of this year.

Russia and Ukraine are poised for talks in Turkiye on Thursday, even though the prospects of President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting directly for the first time in three years were dashed by the Kremlin late on Wednesday.

United States President Donald Trump, who had earlier indicated that he might join the negotiations, will also not attend, according to American officials.

Here’s what we know about the talks, what prompted them, who’s expected to attend, and why the negotiations matter:

Why are the talks being held?

On Sunday, Putin proposed the idea of direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Turkiye, instead of the rounds of indirect talks that the US and others have tried to mediate between the neighbours at war. Putin referenced direct talks that took place in 2022 while pitching for their resumption.

“It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv. Nevertheless, we are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions,” Putin said on Sunday.

In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Shortly after, Russia and Ukraine held talks in the Turkish capital, Istanbul.

According to Zelenskyy, the talks fell apart because Russia demanded that Ukraine concede the Donbas region, which spans Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions – parts of which Russia occupied during its invasion. Zelenskyy added that Russia wanted Ukraine to surrender long-range weaponry, make constitutional amendments to declare neutrality and significantly reduce its armed forces. “There were never any negotiations; it was an ultimatum from a murderer,” Zelenskyy said at the time.

While Zelenskyy had earlier held that any peace agreement would require Russia to give up Ukrainian territory it had occupied, in December last year, Zelenskyy said the “hot phase” of the war could end if NATO offered security guarantees for the part of Ukraine currently under Kyiv’s control.

He added that the return of land that Russia has occupied could be diplomatically negotiated later.

“The pressure that the US has exerted to attempt to bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine has evolved over time,” Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera. “It appears that the most recent elements in that evolution, particularly in terms of European solidarity with Ukraine, have led Russia to engage in direct talks.”

Putin’s recent push for talks came a day after Ukraine’s four major European allies gave Putin an ultimatum to accept an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face renewed sanctions. This ultimatum came after leaders of the European countries, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland, visited Kyiv.

They gave Putin a deadline until May 12. On Sunday, May 11, Putin – without committing to a ceasefire – said: “We are committed to serious negotiations with Ukraine. Their purpose is to eliminate the root causes of the conflict, to establish a long-term, lasting peace for the historical perspective.”

Where are they being held?

The talks are being held in the Turkish city of Istanbul, which straddles the boundary between Asia and Europe.

What role did Trump play in this?

The four European leaders – Britain’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Poland’s Donald Tusk – said that they had briefed Trump about their ultimatum to Russia over a phone call and suggested that he was on board.

But after Putin called for direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow, Trump issued a statement on his Truth Social platform asking Ukraine to meet with Russia “immediately”.

Trump ran his campaign for the 2024 election on the promise to bring a swift end to the Ukraine war. The Trump administration held multiple meetings, starting February, with Russian and Ukrainian representatives separately in Saudi Arabia in attempts to broker a deal.

Also in April, the Trump administration indicated that it was taking a step back from providing security guarantees to Ukraine. The Trump administration said it wanted Europe to take the lead in supporting Ukraine’s defence instead, noting that the US had other priorities, including border security.

In recent weeks, however, Trump and his team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have expressed growing frustration at the lack of meaningful progress in negotiations and have threatened to walk out of efforts to mediate peace.

Explaining his insistence that Ukraine join the May 15 Istanbul talks, Trump argued: “At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the US, will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly!”

Who will be there?

“I supported President Trump with the idea of direct talks with Putin. I have openly expressed my readiness to meet. I will be in Turkiye. I hope that the Russians will not evade the meeting,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on Monday.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy announced he will be in Ankara on Thursday, where he will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The talks with Russia, however, are supposed to be held in Istanbul subsequently.

Trump has said he will send Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg to attend the talks in Istanbul.

Russia on Wednesday night announced its team for the meeting. Vladimir Medinsky, a close Putin aide and former culture minister who also led previous rounds of unsuccessful talks with Ukraine in 2022, will lead Moscow’s team. With him will be Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin and the director of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Igor Kostyukov.

Trump’s earlier offer to attend the talks himself had been welcomed by Kyiv. “All of us in Ukraine would appreciate it if President Trump could be there with us at this meeting in Turkiye. This is the right idea. We can change a lot,” Zelenskyy had said.

However, late on Wednesday, US officials clarified that Trump would not be attending.

The US president is currently in the Middle East, where he spent Wednesday in Qatar, after visiting Saudi Arabia a day earlier. On Thursday, Trump will be in the United Arab Emirates before returning to Washington.

What does Putin’s absence mean?

Zelenskyy had earlier said he would be present at the talks only if Putin also attended. “Putin is the one who determines everything in Russia, so he is the one who has to resolve the war. This is his war. Therefore, the negotiations should be with him,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Tuesday.

With Putin now no longer poised to attend, it is unclear if Zelenskyy will personally participate in the talks or whether he will leave it to his team to join the negotiations.

Yet, in many ways, Zelenskyy scored over Putin by throwing down the gauntlet and asking him to attend.

“Zelenskyy has presented a challenge to Russia to show that it has genuine interest; it is up to Russia whether it meets this challenge or not,” said Giles.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had also pledged to urge Putin to attend the talks.

What’s on the table?

It is difficult to predict what might specifically be discussed in the Turkiye talks.

“It would be rash to predict whether there will be any meaningful discussion at all, since the acceptable outcomes for both are still far apart,” Giles said. “Russia wants to neutralise Ukraine as an independent sovereign state, while Ukraine wants to survive.”

At the moment, Ukraine has proposed an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, while Russia has insisted that a series of its demands be accepted before it joins such a truce. Moscow said that it wants assurances over the monitoring mechanism for a ceasefire, and that a truce won’t be used by Ukraine to rearm and mobilise more soldiers. Instead, Putin has announced brief, unilateral ceasefires in recent days that Ukraine says Moscow never actually adhered to.

“We do not rule out that, during these negotiations, it will be possible to agree on some new truces, a new ceasefire and a real truce, which would be observed not only by Russia, but also by the Ukrainian side. [It] would be the first step, I repeat, to a long-term sustainable peace, and not a prologue to the continuation of the armed conflict,” Putin said on Sunday.

How significant are these talks?

Giles said that if the talks happen, “they will be a significant step forward”.

He added: “Anything that has been referred to as peace talks [ so far] has not been anything of the sort,” describing the two parallel discussions that the US has had with Russia and Ukraine.

On March 19, the US, Ukraine and Russia announced a 30-day ceasefire on attacks on Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and on March 25, they agreed on a Black Sea deal, halting the military use of commercial vessels and the use of force in the Black Sea. Both sides, however, traded blame for violating the terms of those agreements, which have now expired.

After a signing trade and defence deals with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, US President Donald Trump told media in Doha that the two had also discussed the Russia-Ukraine war and Iran’s nuclear programme.

Brazil, China call for direct talks as the “only way to end the conflict” between Russia and Ukraine.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pledged to press his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to attend negotiations with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkiye, adding to calls on Moscow to enter talks and end its three-year war.

Lula is expected to stop in the Russian capital on the way back from attending a regional forum in China.

“I’ll try to talk to Putin,” Lula said at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday before his departure.

“It costs me nothing to say, ‘hey, comrade Putin, go to Istanbul and negotiate, dammit,’” he said.

The negotiations, expected to take place on Thursday in Turkiye’s commercial hub, Istanbul, would be the first direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow since 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Lula’s comments come after the Ukrainian foreign minister urged Brazil to use its influence with Russia to secure a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy.

Brazil and China issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling for direct negotiations as the “only way to end the conflict”.

Zelenskyy earlier dared Putin to meet him in Turkiye, saying if he does not show up, it would show that Moscow is not interested in peace.

He also urged United States President Donald Trump, currently on a tour of Middle Eastern countries, to also visit Turkiye and participate in the talks.

Trump had announced that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would participate in the talks in Istanbul.

A State Department official said Rubio was expected to be in Istanbul on Friday.

The Kremlin has not yet specified whether Putin will attend in person, stating only that the “Russian delegation will be present”.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Moscow was ready for serious talks on Ukraine, but doubted Kyiv’s capacity for negotiations.

These are the key events on day 1,175 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Wednesday, May 14:

Fighting

• At least three people were killed in a Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s Kharkiv, an official from the region said.

• At least 16 people were wounded in Ukrainian drone attacks on the region of Belgorod, the governor of the southwestern Russian region said.

• Among the wounded were a doctor and a paramedic, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on the Telegram messaging app. Eight people were admitted to hospital, he added.

• Russia’s air defence units destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to Russian news agencies.

Ceasefire talks

• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would travel to Turkiye this week for negotiations with Russia on the war in Ukraine and urged President Vladimir Putin to meet him for face-to-face talks.
• Zelenskyy called on US counterpart Donald Trump to help secure a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Turkiye on Thursday, while accusing the Russian leader of not seriously wanting to end the war.
• Zelenskyy also said he hopes to attend Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural Mass on Sunday, depending on developments in talks with Russia this week.
• Trump said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would participate in talks on the Ukraine war in Turkiye, saying he expects “some pretty good results”. A State Department official said Rubio was expected on Friday in Istanbul.
• Brazil’s president said he will press Vladimir Putin to attend negotiations with Zelenskyy in Turkiye.

• French President Emmanuel Macron has declared that he was in favour of imposing new sanctions on Russia in the coming days if Moscow failed to agree to a ceasefire, mentioning financial services and oil and gas as possible targets.

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier said European allies would roll out “a significant tightening of sanctions” if there was no progress on ending the Ukraine war this week.

• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Moscow was ready for serious talks on Ukraine but had doubts about Kyiv’s capacity for negotiations.

Economy

• The EU is preparing to apply much higher tariffs on imports from Ukraine within weeks, hitting Kyiv’s economy at a crucial time in its fight against Russian aggression, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, quoting diplomats.

These are the key events on day 1,174 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Tuesday, May 13:

Ceasefire

• Moscow has yet to say whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin will attend direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slated for Thursday in Istanbul and proposed by Kyiv over the weekend. The leaders have not met since December 2019.
• United States President Donald Trump said he is “thinking about flying over” to Istanbul to join the potential Putin-Zelenskyy talks.
• “I don’t know where I’m going to be on Thursday – I’ve got so many meetings – but I was thinking about actually flying over there. There’s a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen,” Trump said. “Don’t underestimate Thursday in Turkey.”

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he held a joint call with Ukrainian and European officials to discuss a “way forward for a ceasefire” on Monday.
• Europe will reportedly push the White House for new sanctions on Moscow if Putin either fails to attend the Istanbul meeting, or fails to agree to an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
• Germany said it is also preparing sanctions against Moscow if the talks stall.

Fighting

• Ukraine says that Russia is “completely ignoring” calls for a 30-day ceasefire made over the weekend by the US and Europe. It was due to begin on Monday.
• “Russian shelling and assaults continue,” Zelenskyy said in a nightly address. “Moscow has remained silent all day regarding the proposal for a direct meeting. A very strange silence.”
• Ukraine’s military said that there had been 133 clashes with Russian forces along the front lines up to Monday night.
• The heaviest fighting continues in the Donetsk region on Ukraine’s eastern front and Russia’s western Kursk region. Ukraine’s military said the intensity remains unchanged since the ceasefire was supposed to begin.
• Moscow called the 30-day ceasefire an excuse by Europe to “provide a breather for Kyiv to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia”.