Ukraine rallied support from its Western allies on Friday after Kyiv and Moscow failed to agree to a ceasefire at their first direct talks in more than three years, with Russia presenting conditions that a Ukrainian source described as \u201cnon-starters\u201d.<\/p>\n
Under pressure from US President Donald Trump to end the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War Two, delegates from the warring countries met for the first time since March 2022, the month after Russia invaded its neighbour.<\/p>\n
The talks in an Istanbul palace lasted well under two hours. Russia expressed satisfaction with the meeting and said it was ready to continue contacts. Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each in what would be the biggest such exchange yet.<\/p>\n
But Kyiv, which wants the West to impose tighter sanctions unless Moscow accepts a proposal from Trump for a 30-day ceasefire, immediately began rallying its allies for tougher action.<\/p>\n
As soon as the talks ended, Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held a phone call with Trump and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland, his spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy said robust sanctions should follow if Russia rejected a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s demands were \u201cdetached from reality and go far beyond anything that was previously discussed\u201d, a source in the Ukrainian delegation told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moscow had issued ultimatums for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of its own territory in order to obtain a ceasefire \u201cand other non-starters and non-constructive conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the Russian position was \u201cclearly unacceptable\u201d and that European leaders, Ukraine and the US were \u201cclosely aligning\u201d their responses.<\/p>\n
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU was working on a new package of sanctions against Moscow.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters that his team had \u201ctaken note\u201d of the Ukrainians\u2019 request for direct talks between Zelenskiy and President Vladimir Putin. Putin, after proposing the direct talks, had spurned a challenge from the Ukrainian leader to meet him personally in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail. After such a vision has been presented, we believe it would be appropriate, as also agreed, to continue our negotiations,\u201d Medinsky said.<\/p>\n
Russia wants more talks before ceasefire
\nThe sides mostly repeated their known positions. The Ukrainians wanted an immediate ceasefire and talks to ensue, while the Russians demanded more peace talks before agreeing on a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want serious negotiations, you need to have guns silent,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi told reporters.<\/p>\n
Expectations for a major breakthrough, already low, were dented further on Thursday when Trump, winding up a Middle East tour, said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Putin.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy said Kyiv\u2019s top priority was \u201ca full, unconditional and honest ceasefire \u2026 to stop the killing and create a solid basis for diplomacy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Russia says it wants to end the war by diplomatic means and is ready to discuss a ceasefire. But it has raised a list of questions and concerns, saying Ukraine could use a pause to rest its forces, mobilise extra troops and acquire more Western weapons.<\/p>\n
Ukraine and its allies accuse Putin of stalling and say he is not serious about wanting peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukraine rallied support from its Western allies on Friday after Kyiv and Moscow failed to agree to a ceasefire at their first direct talks in more than three years, with Russia presenting conditions that a Ukrainian source described as \u201cnon-starters\u201d. Under pressure from US President Donald Trump to end the bloodiest conflict in Europe since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9187,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9185\/revisions\/9187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}