1 000-for-1 000 exchange, ceasefire, and leadersʼ meeting. What delegations talked about in Istanbul

During a meeting of Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul, the parties discussed a large-scale prisoner exchange and a ceasefire.

This was reported by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov at a press briefing.

"We were negotiating in order to achieve the possibility of a prisoner exchange: 1 000 for 1 000. We managed to achieve this," he emphasized.

The representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Major General Vadim Skibitsky noted that lists of people who will be returned to their homeland are currently being processed.

The second purpose of the meeting, according to Umerov, was to discuss a ceasefire: "We exchanged modalities, and the teams will work on the details".

The third priority is high-level discussions. Umerov emphasized that the next step should be a meeting between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi noted that the meeting included demands from Russia that Ukraine considers unacceptable. He did not specify what those demands were, but media outlets previously reported that they included the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from four regions that the Russians had partially occupied.

"We were preparing for this, the Ukrainian delegation knew that this would happen. Therefore, it kept a calm tone and calmly defended its line, expressed its position. We believe that the Ukrainian delegation did this quite effectively," Tykhy noted.

He also added that the Russian delegation may have had a limited mandate to sign any ceasefire document, unlike the Ukrainian one.

• On May 16, the first direct talks between Ukraine and Russia since 2022 were held in Istanbul. The meeting lasted a little over an hour and, according to media reports, did not produce significant results. According to journalists, Russia demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from a number of territories to ensure a ceasefire and threatened to occupy the Kharkiv and Sumy regions.
• At the beginning of the war, delegations of Ukraine and Russia had already met in Istanbul, but in the spring of 2022, such meetings stopped. Based on the “Istanbul Communiqué”, the parties concluded a major agreement. One of its drafts, dated April 15, is publicly available — it was published by the American newspaper The New York Times. From this draft, it is clear that Russia offered Ukraine to agree to worthless, meaningless guarantees. The Russian side reserved the right to block any military assistance and at the same time demanded that Ukraine limit the size of the Defense Forces. In essence, Putin offered Zelensky to surrender — just in a more veiled form.

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