Negotiations between Ukraine and russia in Istanbul lasted less than 2 hours — media

In Istanbul, the russian and Ukrainian sides held their first direct negotiations for the first time since 2022. They lasted less than two hours.

This is reported by Sky News.

According to some media reports, the parties allegedly took a break after an hour and a half of the negotiations, but it turned out that this was the end of the negotiations.

Also, according to media reports, the participants in the meeting communicated through an interpreter.

The negotiations did not have significant results. It is also reported that russia put forward demands that are unrealistic and go far beyond everything that was discussed earlier.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who is participating in the negotiation process with the russian delegation in Istanbul, said that Ukraine is ready for direct negotiations with the aggressor country russia at the highest level. Peace is possible if the russian federation agrees to a complete ceasefire and humanitarian steps.

Instead, the russians want to create associations between the russian-Ukrainian negotiations in 2022 and the current ones. Recall that during the Istanbul negotiations in 2022, russia demanded that Ukraine actually surrender.

On May 11, kremlin leader vladimir putin publicly proposed resuming direct negotiations with Ukraine on May 15. According to putin, the venue for the negotiations should be Istanbul, a city where previous rounds of dialogue had already taken place in 2022. However, as a result, putin did not come to the negotiations, but sent a delegation instead, consisting of deputy ministers and putin's assistant vladimir medinsky.

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