INSIDE RUSSIA
Failed negotiations could lead to more escalation, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warns
Ultimatums from the West will not help resolve the Ukraine conflict, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned, after the EU and the US threatened Moscow with additional sanctions.
As Russia and Ukraine held their first direct talks in three years in Istanbul on Friday, US President Donald Trump said he could impose “crushing” restrictions on Russia if it failed to reach a peace deal.
EU member states also agreed on a 17th sanctions package, which is expected to be formally approved next week.
“All enemies of Russia that issue negotiating ultimatums should remember a simple thing: peace negotiations alone do not always lead to the end of hostilities,” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on X on Saturday.
“Unsuccessful negotiations can lead to the onset of a more terrible stage of the war with new weapons and participants,” he added.
The West has urged Russia to accept an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposed by Ukraine and the US. Moscow, however, has argued that Kiev would exploit the pause in combat to rearm and regroup its forces.
President Vladimir Putin has insisted that a lasting settlement would require Ukraine to halt its mobilization drive, stop receiving weapons from abroad, and withdraw its troops from Russian territory.
The head of Russia’s negotiating team in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, said the two sides had agreed to conduct a prisoner swap involving 1,000 POWs from each side, and to continue contacts once both parties have prepared detailed ceasefire proposals.
Lavrov and Rubio discuss Istanbul talks
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have shared their assessments of the Istanbul talks
The top Russian and US diplomats have shared their assessments of the Istanbul talks in a phone call, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. Sergey Lavrov and Marco Rubio welcomed the negotiations and underscored the readiness of the sides to work together toward peace in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, according to the ministry.
The conversation took place on Saturday at the initiative of the US, according to the statement. Rubio welcomed the prisoner exchange agreed by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations during the talks on Friday and stated that “the United States is committed to achieving a lasting end to the Russia-Ukraine war,” according to the US Department of State.
Lavrov praised the “positive role” America played in bringing Kiev to the negotiating table and agreeing to resume the Istanbul peace process. He also expressed Moscow’s readiness to work with Washington on this.
In addition, Lavrov and Rubio discussed other international and regional issues, as well as Russia-US bilateral contacts, the ministry said, without providing further details.
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky initially ruled out any talks with Moscow unless Russia agreed to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire. The Kremlin has rejected Kiev’s demands, arguing that Ukraine would use the pause to regroup and rearm its military.
However, Zelensky agreed to talks after US President Donald Trump expressed his support for Putin’s initiative and urged Kiev to agree to it “immediately.”
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Friday, following President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to resume peace talks without any preconditions.
The peace process between the two nations was disrupted in spring 2022 after several rounds of talks in Belarus and Türkiye, when Kiev unilaterally walked away from the negotiations. David Arakhamia, the head of the Ukrainian delegation at the time, later stated that the decision was made after a visit to Kiev by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who he said told the Ukrainian government to not sign anything and “just fight.”
Putin-Zelensky meeting ‘possible’
Talks are possible if Russia and Ukraine reach progress in the settlement process, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky could hold talks if the ongoing peace efforts between Russian and Ukrainian delegations result in progress and firm agreements, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday. His comments come after the first direct negotiations between Moscow and Kiev since 2022.
On Friday, Russian and Ukrainian representatives sat down for a two-hour Turkish-mediated meeting in Istanbul. The sides agreed to exchange their ceasefire proposals and to discuss a potential follow-up meeting, according to Moscow’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky. Moscow and Kiev also agreed to a major prisoner exchange, he said, adding that Russia is “satisfied” with the results of the talks and is ready to “resume contacts” with Kiev.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Peskov said a meeting between Putin and Zelensky “is possible but only as a result of the work of the delegations of both sides and reaching specific agreements.”
He added that a key issue for Moscow remains the question of who Ukraine would authorize to sign any potential agreements reached by the negotiators.
Peskov was referring to the fact that Zelensky’s presidential term expired last year. The Ukrainian leader refused to call a new election, citing martial law. Russia considers him “illegitimate,” insisting that legal authority in Ukraine now lies with the parliament.
Peskov also declined to comment on leaks regarding the terms Russia reportedly presented to Ukraine during the talks. “Negotiations… must be conducted strictly behind closed doors. This is in the interest of the effectiveness of these negotiations,” he said.
Bloomberg earlier reported that Russia set out a list of conditions including Ukraine agreeing to neutral status, banning foreign troops and nuclear weapons from its territory, and de-facto recognizing the loss of its former territories. According to the agency, Moscow also wants Kiev to withdraw from these regions before a ceasefire.
The Kremlin spokesman noted that Russia has not held talks with the US on the results of the negotiations in Istanbul, adding that Moscow is not currently contemplating altering the line-up of its delegation, while confirming that the sides “agreed to exchange the list of ceasefire terms.”
Ukraine and its backers initially demanded that Moscow agree to a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire as a prerequisite for talks. Russia expressed concern that a pause would only benefit Kiev and allow it to regroup its battered troops. Instead, it proposed holding direct negotiations without preconditions.
While initially reluctant to accept the offer, Zelensky changed his mind after US President Donald Trump insisted that “Ukraine should agree to this [Istanbul talks] immediately.”
Putin Invites Arab League Leaders to Take Part in 1st Russian-Arab Summit — Kremlin
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited the leaders and Secretary General of the League of Arab States (LAS) to take part in the 1st Russian-Arab Summit scheduled for October 15, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
“We intend to develop constructive dialogue with the LAS in the future, as well as friendly relations with its members. In this regard, I would like to invite all state leaders of your union, as well as the League’s Secretary General, to take part in the 1st Russian-Arab Summit, which we are planning to hold on October 15,” Russian president’s telegram to the Arab League read.
The Russian leader expressed hope that the meeting will facilitate further strengthening of mutually beneficial cooperation between the states, will help to find ways of ensuring peace, security and stability in the Middle East and North Africa.
On Saturday, the Arab League started its 34th Summit. President Putin noted that the summit is being held at difficult time amid escalation between Israel and Palestine. But under such circumstances the role of the League as a multilateral dialogue mechanism is becoming more crucial, the president emphasized.
Russia, in is turn, supports collective political and diplomatic efforts of the Arab countries both within the League and other formats aimed at settlement of the existing tensions, he added.
OUTSIDE RUSSIA
Russia hits out at British PM
London has been behind every Western escalatory move in the Ukraine conflict, the Russian UK Embassy says
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ultimatums and sanctions threats show that the UK wants to undermine the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, the Russian Embassy in the UK has said.
Last week, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, and Poland met in Kiev and threatened to impose more sanctions on Russia if Moscow did not agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire by Monday. That date has come and gone, and no truce was agreed upon during Friday’s direct Russia-Ukraine talks.
“Now, having issued that ultimatum, we must be prepared to follow through, because if Russia won’t come to the negotiating table, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin must pay the price,” Starmer said at a security meeting in Albania on Friday. “The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.”
The Russian Embassy in London noted that Downing Street is not part of the talks between the belligerents.
“The British Prime Minister hasty statement claiming that Russia’s position at the talks in Istanbul is unacceptable and that a response is being prepared causes outright bewilderment,” the embassy said in a statement on Friday.
Who is it unacceptable to? We are not negotiating with London.
“The British have been behind all the escalatory moves by the West, from supplying offensive weapons to Kiev’s military and to using Western long-range missiles against civilians deep in Russian territory,” the embassy wrote. London was the first of Kiev’s Western sponsors to send domestic long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine.
“Now, such ultimatums, made against the backdrop of the negotiation process, are obviously aimed at complicating or undermining the settlement,” the statement said. “It seems Downing Street is not aware of the self-incriminating nature of its actions.”
The UK has also scuttled previous peace talks, the embassy noted. “It was London that made a considerable effort to disrupt the first negotiation process in 2022, and to subsequently keep the conflict hot.”
The unsuccessful 2022 negotiations in Istanbul were torpedoed by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who convinced Ukraine to pull out, according to the Ukrainian delegation’s top negotiator at the talks, David Arakhamia.
SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE
Russia-Ukraine Talks: Who Holds All the Cards and Who Badly Needs a Respite?
The first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in 3 years have been concluded in Istanbul on May 16.
Russia was negotiating from the position of strength due to its obvious successes on the battlefield, deputy director of research at the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Dmitry Suslov, tells Sputnik.
Ukraine, in the meantime, desperately needs a ceasefire because it is losing and needs a pause to recover and regroup.
Zelensky’s demand for one-on-one talks with Putin was an act of showmanship aimed at Trump: the ex-comedian was trying to make it look like he is the one who wants peace while simultaneously directing Trump’s ire at Putin for not showing up in Istanbul.
Zelensky fears that Trump might make some concessions to Putin to end the Ukrainian conflict and then present these concessions to Ukraine as fait accompli. Thus, Zelensky tried to meet with Putin first before the latter, together with Trump, would be able to resolve the conflict through a bilateral Russian-American summit.
The negotiations in Istanbul were not a failure, with Russia being able to display its willingness to resolve the Ukrainian crisis “through diplomacy based on addressing the fundamental roots and reasons for the conflict.”
The US may also regard the talks as a success, with Trump now being able to “boast that he succeeded in launching Russian-Ukrainian bilateral negotiations.”
Russian Forces Take Control of Aleksandropol Village in Donetsk Region – MoD
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia’s Battlegroup Tsentr has taken control of the village of Aleksandropol in the region of Donetsk, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
“The village of Aleksandropol in the Donetsk People’s Republic has been liberated by decisive actions of Battlegroup Tsentr,” the ministry said.
Russia’s Battlegroup Tsentr has eliminated over 490 Ukrainian military personnel over the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
“The enemy’s losses amounted to over 490 servicepeople, one tank, two armored fighting vehicles, including a Turkish-made Kirpi armored vehicle, 14 motor vehicles, an artillery gun and an ammunition depot,” the ministry said in a statement.
Russia’s Battlegroup Yug has eliminated up to 265 Ukrainian soldiers, while Russia’s Battlegroup Zapad has eliminated over 225 Ukrainian troops, along with 13 motor vehicles, a US-made M113 armored personnel carrier, two electronic warfare stations and four ammunition depots, the ministry added.
Kiev lost over 160 military personnel in clashes with Russia’s Battlegroup Vostok, while Russia’s Battlegroup Sever eliminated up to 140 Ukrainian soldiers, the ministry also said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Battlegroup Dnepr has eliminated up to 65 Ukrainian soldiers, an armored fighting vehicle, three motor vehicles, two artillery guns and two electronic warfare stations, the ministry added.
The Russian air defense forces shot down 80 Ukrainian drones, and destroyed three Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs and a US-made HIMARS projectile, the ministry also said.
INSIGHTS
Istanbul Talks 2.0 are a great chance for Zelensky to accept reality
The sooner Kiev and its Western backers realize there will be no one-sided deal, the sooner peace might come
Despite Ukraine’s and the EU’s worst efforts at underhanded sabotage, the Istanbul talks – the first direct Russian-Ukrainian talks in three years – have now taken place.
They may be over for now, they may continue soon. They may still turn into a dead end or they may help get somewhere better than war. What is clear already is that they are not meaningless. The question is what that meaning will be once we look back on them from the near future of either peace or continuing war.
The leader of the Russian team in Istanbul, Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, cautiously praised the two-hour talks as satisfying “overall.” A substantial prisoner exchange has been agreed (but not in the “all-for-all” format Ukraine unrealistically called for). Ukraine’s request for a meeting between its superannuated leader Vladimir Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been made – this time apparently in a serious and diplomatic manner – and the Russian side has taken cognizance of it. Both sides have agreed to detail their vision of a potential future ceasefire and then to meet again.
This is much better than nothing. It’s also not a miracle breakthrough. But those expecting or even demanding the latter only have themselves to blame. That sort of thing was never in the cards. And that’s normal. For diplomacy, especially to end a war, is a complex activity for patient adults, by definition. It is also historically normal that such negotiations take place while fighting is still ongoing.
It is silly and simply dishonest to pretend – as do Ukraine, its obstinate European backers, and sometimes (now depending on the mood on any given day) the US – that negotiations can only happen with a ceasefire in place. Medinsky has pointed out this basic fact in an important interview on Russia’s most watched political talk show. Westerners should pay attention. Because he’s right and, perhaps even more importantly, it’s yet another clear signal from Moscow that it will not walk into the simple-minded Western-Ukrainian trap of a ceasefire without at least a very clear path to a full peace.
Indeed, Medinsky referenced the Great Northern War of 1700-1721 to illustrate that Russia will fight as long as it takes. And that it’s a very bad idea not to take a comparatively good deal from Moscow when you are offered one, because the next one will be worse. Zelensky has already done this to his own country once or even twice (depending on how you count). During these second-chance Istanbul talks, an unnamed Russian representative warned Ukraine that if it misses this opportunity again, then the next one will involve additional territorial losses, again, as Russian TV reported.
But let’s zoom out for a moment: There is a very simple thing about the current talks between Russia and Ukraine that virtually everyone in Western mainstream media and politics apparently cannot process. So let’s clarify the obvious: This Istanbul meeting has taken place because of Moscow’s initiative, not that of the West or Ukraine.
It was Putin who, on May 11, suggested, in essence, two things: First to start direct talks without preconditions. And second – this is the part everyone in the West pretends to miss – to do so by re-starting talks where “they were held earlier and where they were interrupted.” That was, of course, a clear reference to the Istanbul negotiations in the spring of 2022.
As intelligent observers suspected immediately, these first Istanbul talks ended without results because the West instructed the Kiev regime to keep fighting. This is not a matter of opinion anymore. The evidence is in and unambiguous. Even the head of Ukraine’s 2022 negotiating team, David Arakhamia, has long publicly admitted two things: First, that Russia was offering Kiev a very advantageous deal back then, demanding no more than neutrality and an end to unrealistic NATO ambitions; everything else, to quote Arakhamia, was merely “cosmetic political seasoning.” And second, that it was indeed the West that told Zelensky to bet on more war instead. And to his eternal shame, Zelensky chose to betray his country by obeying the West.
That means – like it or not – that Putin’s offer of re-starting the Istanbul talks amounted to a second chance for a Kiev regime that – judging by its atrocious record of sacrificing Ukraine to brutal Western geopolitics – it certainly does not deserve. But ordinary Ukrainians do. Regarding Zelensky, he should have been elated and grateful to get a chance to, if not make up for his horrific decision in 2022 (that’s impossible), at least to finally correct it.
But Zelensky has remained Zelensky. His response to the Russian offer was – as so often – stunningly narcissistic, megalomanic, and dishonest. Instead of seizing the chance for his country and himself, Zelensky started a transparent maneuver to put Russia in the wrong so as to impress, above all, US president Donald Trump.
Western politicians and mainstream media, meanwhile, spent tankerloads of venom on denouncing Moscow and Putin, accusing them of sabotaging the talks – which, again, Russia actually initiated – in, allegedly, two ways: by Putin not attending in person and by, as they claim, sending only a “low-level” team instead.
These Western information war talking points have been so ubiquitous that it feels – once again – as if everyone is copying from the same, daft memo. Take the Bloomberg version, for instance. It can stand for all the others. Bloomberg is right about one thing: The composition of the Russian delegation – while by no means “low-ranking,” actually – was bound to “fall far short” of Kiev’s expectations.
But that was the result not of Moscow’s decisions, but of Kiev’s inflated expectations and the way Zelensky tried to realize them. Once Zelensky had, in essence, made a public ultimatum out of his baseless demand that Putin attend in person, it was, obviously, extremely unlikely to happen.
Zelensky’s bad-faith move – really a transparent dare designed to start the conversation by publicly humiliating Moscow – was so predictably counterproductive that it seems hard to explain. No one forced the Ukrainian leader to climb out on a slender limb like that, but, as is his wont, he put loud public provocation over the substance of a chance to save lives.
Or there may be another explanation, of course: Zelensky may have wanted to sabotage these talks even before they even started and do so in a way that would permit him to scapegoat Russia for their failure: “Look, I was ready, but Putin did not turn up.”
The reality is, obviously, that the most efficient way to hold such talks at such a moment is to send teams of experts. Whether they are ministers, deputy ministers, or other high-ranking civil officials is not important. What is important is that they know what they are talking about and come with a modicum of sincere – not unconditional, but sincere – goodwill. Goodwill is clearly there. Otherwise the Russian delegation would not have waited for the Ukrainians to stop their pre-meeting temper tantrum. And there is no doubt that the composition of the Russian team for the Istanbul negotiations displays the necessary expertise and seriousness.
In a way, US President Donald Trump fed in some goodwill as well: Western commentariat eyebrows have been arching up because Trump has been rudely frank once again, explaining that nothing was going to happen until he and Putin get together. In Trump’s defense: that’s true, actually. Don’t like it? Congrats: You are up against reality. Good luck.
Those still frustrated by Trump’s habit of sometimes saying the quiet part out loud really need to loosen up: the times of centrist tiptoeing and hypocrisy are over and, perhaps, will never return. Fingers crossed.
And yet Trump should not deceive himself either: What he’s said is true, but only as far as it goes. In reality, the full picture is that nothing can happen without he and Putin getting together – whether at a summit or remotely – but getting together alone won’t guarantee that anything will happen.
Because that will take more than just meeting but actually agreeing. Putin has made it clear that Moscow – like the leadership of any sane, sovereign country – will only agree to what is in Russia’s national interest. And Russia is winning this war against the West and Ukraine.
There still is room for negotiations, quid-pro-quos, and compromise. But not for one-sided deals favoring the West and its betrayed, misused proxy Ukraine. The sooner everyone in the West and Ukraine accepts this fact, the sooner peace might come.
