{"id":139828,"date":"2025-05-28T22:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T22:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/139828\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T22:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T22:33:11","slug":"russia-proposes-new-round-of-istanbul-talks-ukraine-pushes-for-memorandum-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/139828\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia proposes new round of Istanbul talks; Ukraine pushes for memorandum | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia has proposed a new round of direct talks with Ukraine<\/a> in Turkiye\u2019s Istanbul on Monday with the goal of securing a lasting ceasefire, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says, after heavy bombardment of its neighbour and aerial exchanges in the past week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that all those who are sincerely, and not just in words, interested in the success of the peace process will support holding a new round of direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations in Istanbul,\u201d\u00a0 Lavrov said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Kyiv responded a short time later, saying it had already submitted its version of the memorandum on peace to the Russian delegation.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov urged Moscow to share its version without delay: \u201cWe are not opposed to further meetings with the Russians and are awaiting their \u2018memorandum\u2019, so that the meeting won\u2019t be empty and can truly move us closer to ending the war\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russian side has at least four more days before their departure to provide us with their document for review,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Moscow proposal followed a rare meeting<\/a> between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul on May 16, the first direct contact in more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n

The talks resulted in an exchange<\/a> of 1,000 prisoners of war each, but failed to produce a ceasefire, which remains a key demand of Ukraine and its Western allies. Moscow has insisted that certain conditions must be met before halting military operations.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia\u2019s delegation, said on Telegram that he had contacted Umerov to suggest a date and venue for the next meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me emphasise: right there, on the spot, we are ready to begin an essential, substantive discussion of each of the points of the package agreement on a possible ceasefire,\u201d Medinsky said, adding that he expected a reply from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Dorsa Jabbari in Moscow said the Russians had been preparing this for the last few days after a meeting with Turkish officials on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

At the top of Russia\u2019s agenda is \u201clikely to be a list of demands, about what a possible ceasefire deal would look like. Russia has made it very clear that they are not going to back down by ensuring their security is a top priority,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s John Hendren, reporting from Kyiv, added that from the Ukrainian perspective, Russia is making \u201cmaximalist demands\u201d by blocking Ukraine from joining NATO, asking Kyiv to withdraw troops from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, and imposing limits on the size of the Ukrainian military \u2013 all of which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said is off the table.<\/p>\n

War of words<\/p>\n

The renewed diplomatic push from Moscow comes after growing pressure from United States President Donald Trump<\/a>. Speaking on Wednesday, he suggested that Russian leader Vladimir Putin might be stalling the peace process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to find out whether or not he\u2019s tapping us along or not, and if he is, we\u2019ll respond a little differently,\u201d Trump said, likely referring to imposing more sanctions on Moscow as Ukraine\u2019s European allies have done recently.<\/p>\n

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Trump appeared \u201cnot sufficiently informed about what is really happening in the context of the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has previously expressed scepticism about the effectiveness of sanctions, said he was reluctant to impose new penalties on Moscow, fearing they could derail the fragile ceasefire efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I think I\u2019m close to getting a deal, I don\u2019t want to screw it up by doing that,\u201d he told reporters in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

Trump warned on Tuesday that Putin was \u201cplaying with fire\u201d and suggested \u201creally bad\u201d things would have already happened to Russia were it not for his intervention.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Trump lambasted Putin, describing him as \u201cabsolutely crazy<\/a>\u201d after Moscow launched its largest aerial attack of the war on Ukraine, killing at least 13 people. It was a rare rebuke of Putin from the US president.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Lavrov spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday to discuss preparations for a next round of direct negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry said.<\/p>\n

The ministry said Lavrov briefed Rubio on Russia\u2019s efforts to implement agreements reached after a phone call between Putin and Trump on May 19.<\/p>\n

Putin previously said Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on drafting a memorandum for a future peace accord, but nevertheless has resisted any move towards an immediate, unconditional ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Germany and Ukraine to jointly produce long-range missiles<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Germany and Ukraine<\/a> announced plans to jointly develop long-range missiles as part of their deepening defence cooperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur defence ministers will sign a memorandum of understanding today regarding the procurement of Ukrainian-made long-range weapons systems,\u201d German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said during a joint news conference in Berlin with Zelenskyy on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be no range restrictions, allowing Ukraine to fully defend itself, even against military targets outside its own territory,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Merz had announced two days earlier that Ukraine\u2019s Western allies had lifted range restrictions<\/a> on the weapons they have been supplying.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin has previously warned that any long-range Western-provided weapons, such as Taurus missiles<\/a>, striking inside the country would be seen as an escalation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia has proposed a new round of direct talks with Ukraine in Turkiye\u2019s Istanbul on Monday with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[32,12,332,7661,10243,657,49,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-139828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","12":"tag-sergey-lavrov","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114587841590116193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}