Russia-Ukraine talks end with deal on POWs, no progress on peace

Patrick Sykes, Bloomberg News on Jul 23, 2025

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ISTANBUL, Turkey — Officials from Russia and Ukraine ended a third round of formal negotiations in Istanbul with an agreement to swap more prisoners but little sign of progress on a deal to halt the war.

Ukraine proposed a summit of the leaders of the two countries by the end of August that should also include U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Ukrainian delegation leader, Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, told reporters after the talks late Wednesday.

There’s no point to a summit without first having negotiated a peace deal, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Moscow’s delegation, told a news conference in response. “It doesn’t make sense to meet in order to discuss it all over again from scratch,” he said.

Medinsky said the two sides had agreed to a new exchange of about 1,200 prisoners, and Russia had also proposed returning the bodies of 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

While the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating “positions are quite distant from each other,” they had agreed to continue contacts, Medinsky said. Russia proposed establishing three working groups on political issues, humanitarian questions and military matters, he said.

Umerov said Ukraine continues to insist on a full and unconditional ceasefire to allow for peace talks. It was up to Russia to demonstrate a constructive and realistic approach, he said.

Umerov and Medinsky met for direct talks ahead of the main group negotiations that lasted for less than 40 minutes.

“The ultimate aim is a ceasefire that will pave the way to peace,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in televised comments at the start of the meeting. “Turkey is ready, as ever, to support the process.”

The latest discussions took place after Trump issued a 50-day deadline for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire, and threatened “very severe” secondary sanctions against countries that buy Russian oil and gas if he fails to comply. Trump also said the U.S. would send additional military aid to Ukraine including Patriot air defense systems that will be paid for by Kyiv’s European allies.

Russia has unleashed record drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, prompting Trump to accuse Putin of a lack of sincerity in diplomacy to end the war. “He talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening,” Trump said.

The previous rounds of Istanbul talks between Ukraine and Russia in June and May led to exchanges of prisoners, but no progress in negotiations to end the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.

Russia has rejected calls from Ukraine and its U.S. and European allies for a ceasefire to allow for peace talks. The Kremlin is maintaining hardline demands for Kyiv to accept a neutral status and to withdraw its forces from four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine that Moscow is claiming but doesn’t fully occupy.

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