After days of confusion and theatrics, direct peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators took place on Friday in Istanbul for the first time since the start of the war and resulted in an agreement to conduct what would be the largest prisoner swap of the conflict.
After the negotiations, which lasted an hour and 40 minutes, the leaders of the Ukrainian and Russian delegations confirmed in news briefings that they had agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners each in the near future.
The short talks, mediated by Turkey, focused mainly on Ukraine’s demand for a cease-fire before any substantive peace negotiations got underway.
“We agreed that each side would present its vision of a possible future cease-fire and would spell it out in detail,” said Vladimir Medinsky, the Kremlin aide leading the Russian delegation. “After such a vision is presented, we believe it would be appropriate to also agree to continue our talks on this.”
Mr. Medinsky also said that his team would take back Ukraine’s request for direct negotiations between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. He did not commit to arranging such a meeting.
Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, who led Kyiv’s delegation, confirmed that the teams discussed the prisoner exchange, a cease-fire and the possibility of organizing a meeting of the two leaders.
Mr. Putin, however, has taken aim at Mr. Zelensky’s legitimacy for months and would most likely be loath to meet the Ukrainian leader.
Mr. Zelensky, during a trip to a summit in Albania, accused Mr. Putin on Friday of being “afraid” to meet him in person and turning the Istanbul talks into a “staged, empty process.” He demanded new sanctions against Russia’s energy sector and banks until Moscow engaged in what he called serious diplomacy.
“Pressure must continue to rise until real progress is made,” Mr. Zelensky said.
President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Friday that Russia had no desire for a cease-fire and that “increased pressure from the Europeans and Americans” would be required to obtain one.
Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Macron, alongside the leaders of Britain, Germany and Poland, held a phone conversation with Mr. Trump about the matter on Friday, according to Serhiy Nikiforov, the Ukrainian president’s press secretary, who did not release additional details.
The Istanbul negotiations were not expected — even by President Trump, who initially supported them — to yield any huge breakthroughs.
But the meeting itself marked a tactical win for Mr. Putin, who managed to start the talks without first agreeing to a battlefield cease-fire that Ukraine and almost all of its Western backers had sought as a precondition for negotiations.
Both Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky scrambled in recent days to be seen as responding to Washington’s demand for direct talks between their nations as frustration mounted within the Trump administration about the failure to make any progress toward peace.
Despite encouraging the talks earlier in the week, Mr. Trump undercut them in comments on Thursday, saying nothing meaningful would happen until he met personally with Mr. Putin. On Friday, Mr. Trump said he might call the Russian leader and would meet him “as soon as we can set it up.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated that sentiment, calling it “abundantly clear” that a breakthrough wouldn’t occur until a meeting between the U.S. and Russian leaders took place.
“I don’t think anything productive is actually going to happen from this point forward until they engage in a very frank and direct conversation, which I know President Trump is willing to do,” Mr. Rubio said on Thursday before the talks.
On Friday, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said Moscow agreed that a meeting between the Russian and U.S. leaders was necessary. But he noted that such a summit would require careful preparation to yield results.
Despite those sentiments, Mr. Rubio traveled to the Istanbul palace where the talks took place early Friday. U.S. officials met with the Ukrainians and Russians separately but left it to Turkey to convene the direct talks later in the afternoon. Mr. Rubio left the palace to meet national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany and did not stay for the talks.
In addition to Mr. Medinsky, the Russian delegation included the head of Russian military intelligence, Igor Kostyukov; a deputy foreign minister; and a deputy defense minister.
Mr. Umerov led the Ukrainian delegation, which also included Sergiy Kyslytsya, the first deputy foreign minister, as well as top Ukrainian intelligence officials.
The talks came after days of posturing and brinkmanship that ultimately left Mr. Zelensky outmaneuvered.
Last weekend, Mr. Putin proposed direct talks with Ukraine and announced that he would send a delegation to Istanbul for negotiations on Thursday. Mr. Trump chimed in that he supported the idea. Mr. Zelensky said he would himself go to the talks and called on Mr. Putin to also be there.
A Russian delegation arrived in Istanbul for the talks but Mr. Putin did not show up. Mr. Zelensky traveled to Ankara, Turkey, and met with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but he did not go to Istanbul.
After a day of confusion as to whether talks would take place — and who would attend them — the parties did not end up meeting on Thursday. At a news conference that day, Mr. Zelensky questioned Russia’s seriousness and the way the talks were being organized. But he agreed to send a Ukrainian delegation led by his defense minister, saying he was doing so out of respect for Mr. Trump and Mr. Erdogan.
Many in Ukraine have long feared that Mr. Trump will try to cut a deal deciding their country’s fate behind closed doors with Mr. Putin. Kyiv is likely to bristle at the new suggestions by the Trump administration that a solution to the conflict will come only through a one-on-one meeting between the U.S. and Russian leaders.
More broadly, the slapdash negotiations in Istanbul looked like an attempt by Mr. Putin to thread the needle.
He wants to keep the attention of Mr. Trump, who is promising a new era of warm ties for Moscow with Washington, and to convince the White House that he isn’t stonewalling on the peace in the Ukraine war that Mr. Trump promised as a presidential candidate.
But Mr. Putin is also still seeking Ukraine’s capitulation, both on the battlefield and in negotiations, after more than three years of full-scale war that has come to define his rule.
In talks with the Trump administration this year, Russian officials made what American negotiators considered unrealistic demands, including for territory still under Ukraine’s control in four regions that Moscow claims to have annexed.
Skeptics say Mr. Putin could be using the midlevel talks to convince Mr. Trump that the Ukrainians are the obstacle to peace, hoping that the U.S. president will walk away from Kyiv but continue his rapprochement with Moscow — or force a raw deal on Ukraine that is favorable to the Kremlin.
Valeriy Chaly, a former Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, said in a social media post that Russia’s only aim was to drag out the talks to prepare for an effective offensive soon. On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky told journalists that Russia had concentrated 67,000 troops near the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine for a renewed offensive there.
And Major Oleh Voitsekhovsky, a Ukrainian officer fighting on the eastern front near Lyman, said, “Putin is just playing for time.”
The talks in Istanbul came as the Vatican’s new leadership offered to play host to future negotiations.
Pope Leo XIV said on Wednesday that he “will make every effort so that this peace may prevail.”
“The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another,” he added.
Asked about the Istanbul talks on Friday, the Vatican’s secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, told reporters that the pope was making the Vatican available for a meeting between the two sides. The pope’s offer “is the availability of a space,” he said.
“We are available, if you want to meet, the Holy See, the Vatican would be a very appropriate place,” he said.
Safak Timur contributed reporting from Istanbul; Emma Bubola from Rome; and Aurelien Breeden from Paris.
Paul Sonne is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine.
Maria Varenikova covers Ukraine and its war with Russia.
The post Russia and Ukraine Agree to Prisoner Swap in First Direct Talks in Years appeared first on New York Times.
