Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul for the second time in a month on June 2 to explore the possibility of a ceasefire. The talks lasted just over an hour and, once again, produced no meaningful progress. As with the May 16 negotiations, both sides claimed they had laid the groundwork for prisoner exchanges. But despite Ukraine\u2019s offer to hold another meeting before the end of June, a deep and unbridgeable divide remains between Kyiv and Moscow.<\/p>\n
More meetings are unlikely to change that. Russia continues to demand Kyiv\u2019s capitulation to the full list of conditions President Vladimir Putin set at the war\u2019s outset: Ukrainian neutrality, a government reshaped to suit Moscow\u2019s interests, and the surrender of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Between the two rounds of talks, Putin even raised the stakes, adding a demand for a \u201cbuffer zone\u201d in northern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Kyiv, meanwhile, remains resolute. It refuses to cede any territory and maintains that a full ceasefire along all fronts is a non-negotiable precondition for serious negotiations.<\/p>\n
Still, both sides appear prepared to continue the diplomatic charade.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because these talks are not truly about achieving peace or securing a lasting bilateral agreement. Neither side is genuinely negotiating with the other. Instead, both are using the forum to send messages to the United States \u2013 and to Donald Trump, in particular.<\/p>\n
This dynamic persists despite Trump\u2019s recent efforts to distance himself from the war he once claimed he could end within 24 hours of returning to the White House. That shift in rhetoric has been echoed by key figures in his administration. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who just six months ago represented opposite ends of the Republican spectrum on Ukraine \u2013 with Vance nearly endorsing surrender to Putin, and Rubio among the Senate\u2019s most vocal Ukraine hawks \u2013 have both signalled that Trump\u2019s White House is no longer interested in mediating the conflict. Reflecting that disengagement, there was no high-level prenegotiation meeting between US and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye ahead of the latest talks, unlike those held in May.<\/p>\n
Yet despite Rubio\u2019s apparent reversal \u2013 likely intended to align with Trump \u2013 Ukraine still enjoys broad support in the US Senate, including from senior Republicans. A bipartisan bill aimed at codifying existing sanctions on Russia and imposing new ones \u2013 thereby limiting Trump\u2019s power to roll them back \u2013 has garnered 81 Senate co-sponsors. The bill\u2019s authors, Senators Lindsey Graham (R\u2013South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), recently travelled to Kyiv to reaffirm their backing. Graham has suggested the bill could move forward in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Still, Ukraine knows the bill stands little chance in the House of Representatives without Trump\u2019s blessing. Despite Trump\u2019s enduring animosity towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kyiv has recently adopted a more deferential posture, particularly after their disastrous February meeting in Washington. The Ukrainian government quickly signed and ratified the so-called \u201cminerals deal\u201d that Trump demanded last month. A subsequent meeting between the two leaders \u2013 held on the sidelines of Pope Francis\u2019s funeral \u2013 was notably more productive.<\/p>\n
So far, Kyiv\u2019s strategy of appeasement has yielded little change in Trump\u2019s approach. While Trump has occasionally hinted at taking a tougher stance on Putin \u2013 usually in response to particularly egregious Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians \u2013 he consistently deflects when asked for specifics. For months, he has promised to reveal his plan for Ukraine \u201cin about two weeks,\u201d a vague assurance that remains unfulfilled. A new sanctions package reportedly prepared by his own team over a month ago still sits untouched.<\/p>\n
Hoping that mounting battlefield violence or bipartisan pressure from the US Senate might force Trump to act, Kyiv presses on with negotiations. Just one day before the Istanbul talks, Russia launched a record-setting overnight assault on Ukraine, firing more than 430 missiles and drones. Ukraine responded forcefully: on June 1, it conducted a large-scale drone strike deep inside Russia, destroying dozens of military aircraft, including airborne command platforms and nuclear-capable bombers.<\/p>\n
Yet these high-profile losses have done little to shift Putin\u2019s strategy. He continues to use the negotiation process as a smokescreen, providing Trump with political cover for his inaction. Meanwhile, Russian forces are advancing, making incremental gains in northern Ukraine\u2019s Sumy region \u2013 where they hope to establish a \u201cbuffer zone\u201d \u2013 and pushing forward on the southwestern Donetsk front.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Ukraine\u2019s ability to strike deep inside Russian territory, including potentially vulnerable targets like oil infrastructure, may have more bearing on the war\u2019s trajectory than any outcome from the Istanbul talks. Yet neither military escalation nor stalled diplomacy seems likely to bring a swift end to the conflict.<\/p>\n
Trump says he abhors the civilian toll of this war, even if he stops short of blaming Putin for starting it. But it is Trump\u2019s lack of strategy \u2013 his hesitation, his mixed signals, his refusal to lead \u2013 that is prolonging the conflict, escalating its brutality and compounding its risks for global stability.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s advisers may call it \u201cpeace through strength,\u201d but what we are witnessing is paralysis through posturing. Russia\u2019s delegation in Istanbul was never a step towards resolution \u2013 it was a diplomatic decoy, shielding a brutal military advance. If Trump refuses to back a serious escalation in pressure on Moscow \u2013 through expanded sanctions and renewed military aid to Kyiv \u2013 he won\u2019t just fail to end the war. He will become complicit in prolonging it. The choice before him is clear: lead with resolve, or let history record that under his watch, weakness spoke louder than peace.<\/p>\n
The views expressed in this article are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera\u2019s editorial stance.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul for the second time in a month on June 2 to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[32,299,7670,332,7661,657,49,286],"class_list":{"0":"post-160139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-opinions","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-us-canada"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114630643139124248","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160139","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=160139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}