Ukraine and Russia are working on a new prisoner exchange after a second consultation between their delegations in Istanbul. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this during a summit with a number of NATO countries in Lithuania.
The delegations exchanged documents through mediator Turkey and “we are preparing a new release of prisoners of war,” Zelensky said. The president himself was not present at the talks.
Ukrainian Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov said after the talks in Istanbul that the emphasis in that prisoner exchange is on the exchange of seriously injured, sick, and prisoners under the age of 25. This is confirmed by Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation. Russia says it will hand over six thousand bodies to Ukraine next week.
Ukraine and Russia met for the second time in more than three years on Monday for direct consultation. The talks lasted no longer than an hour. At the first meeting in May, the countries also agreed to a prisoner exchange, but that was it.
Prior to the new meeting, Ukraine had drawn up a roadmap towards peace. This focused on three steps: a complete ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners of war, and a conversation between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine wants to meet again before the end of the month
Ukraine says it also received a Russian memorandum on Monday. This concerns the next steps in a consultation on a ceasefire. “We were not yet able to respond to that, because we only received it today. But we are going to study it,” the delegation said.
According to the Russian delegation, the plan concerns steps for a complete ceasefire. The Ukrainian delegation said on Monday that Russia was not yet open to an unconditional ceasefire. The Russians were said to have proposed a ceasefire of two to three days for certain areas.
The Ukrainian delegation reiterated on Monday that the conversation between the two presidents is crucial. “All important issues can only be resolved at the level of leaders.” The delegation also proposes to organize another meeting before the end of June to continue making progress in the talks.
Monday’s discussion in Istanbul followed a day after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on various air force bases in Russia. According to Ukraine, dozens of fighter planes were destroyed and 6.1 billion euros in damage was caused. See how Ukraine did that in the video below.
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