By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent
The talk will be of peace today in Istanbul, but the build-up has been all about war.
Both sides have stepped up their attacks ahead of the next round of talks in a bid to assert their dominance and strengthen their hand at the negotiating table.
Ukraine with its audacious attack on Russia’s long-range bombers; Moscow with its largest drone attack of the war so far, launching 472 drones across the border on Saturday night.
Given that build-up, a breakthrough seems very unlikely.
The first round yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war so far, but that was all. That meeting last month was over after just two hours.
This time, the two sides are due to present their blueprints for peace, which may serve only to highlight how far apart they are.
According to Reuters news agency, Ukraine’s framework includes no restrictions on its military, no international recognition of Russia’s territorial claims in eastern Ukraine, and reparations for Kyiv.
Judging by the noises coming from Moscow in recent weeks, Russia’s is the diametric opposite: permanent neutrality for Ukraine, no foreign troops there and that the four eastern territories its forces currently occupy become Russian in their entirety.
The aim of the talks is to bridge that gap, but clearly that will be challenging – partly because of how wide it is, but also because of what’s happened in the past 24-48 hours.