Russia, Ukraine encounters the latest peace negotiations as two attacks – state
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine held a second round of direct peace talks in Turkiye on Monday, although expectations for any significant progress towards ending the Three Years’ War was low after a series of amazing attacks over the weekend.
Officials said the Ukrainian delegation was led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov. According to Russian state media reports, Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, leads the Kremlin team.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan presided over the talks at the city's Ciragan Palace and delivered an opening speech to mark their starting point.
Latest comments from senior officials of the two countries show that they are still far apart under the critical conditions of stopping the war.
Ukraine said on Sunday it launched a stunning surprise attack on four Russian air bases thousands of kilometers (miles), destroying more than 40 fighter jets. The raid was unprecedented in scope and geographical scope, targeting bases in the Russian Arctic, Siberia and the Far East, more than 7,000 kilometers (4,300 miles) from Ukraine.
Vasyl Maliuk, head of the Ukrainian security department who led the action plan, said its success was “a significant slap for Russia's military power”. He said the drones attacked simultaneously in three time zones, and the complex logistics took a year and a half to prepare.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a great action.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched its largest drone in Ukraine (472) on Sunday since the full invasion in February 2022. This is part of a recent strike campaign in civilian areas of Ukraine.
Hopefully the conversation about Istanbul is not high
So far, efforts by U.S. leadership to bring both sides to a ceasefire have failed. Ukraine accepted this step, but the Kremlin effectively rejected it.
“Russia is trying to delay negotiations and extend the war to achieve additional battlefield growth,” the Washington-based think tank War Institute said on Sunday.
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This ruthless battle thwarted the goal of U.S. President Donald Trump's goal to quickly end the war. A week ago, he expressed impatientness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Moscow lashed out at Kiev and other Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles for the third consecutive night. Trump said on social media that Putin was “absolutely crazy!”
Senior officials from both countries said that under the critical conditions of stopping the war, the two sides remain far apart.
The first round of negotiations, also held in Istanbul on May 16, ended less than two hours later. Although both sides agreed to a large prisoner exchange, there was no breakthrough.
Ukraine optimistic after strike on air base
Ukraine aims at a distant Russian air base. Russian official response was muted, and the attacks were rarely reported on state-controlled television. Russia-1 TV Channel spent more than a minute on Sunday night and read a brief statement from the Ministry of Defense statement at its Ukrainian post.
Zelenskyy said the Kremlin setback will help push it to the negotiating table, even if it has a summer offensive on the battlefield.
“Russia must feel the meaning of its losses. That's what pushes it to diplomacy,” he said at a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on Monday.
Since the early days of the war, Ukraine occasionally attacked Russian-capable strategic bombers, prompting the Russian Air Force to redeploy most people, most of whom were away from the frontlines.
Since Sunday's drones were launched from trucks near five Russian regional bases, military defenses have little time to prepare for them.
Many Russian military bloggers blame the army for failing to build protective shields for bombers, despite previous attacks, but the aircraft is large in size, which is a challenging task.
Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said the attacks were “a major blow to Russia's strategic air force” and exposed the significant vulnerability of Moscow's military capabilities.
“It's hard to underestimate,” O'Brien wrote in the analysis.
Frontline combat and artillery
“If the Istanbul meeting has nothing, it obviously means that the strong new sanctions against Russia are urgently needed, urgently needed, urgently needed, urgently needed,” Zelenskyy said.
International concerns over the consequences of the war and trade tensions have lowered Asian shares on Monday, while oil prices soared.
Fierce battles continued along the frontline of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), with both sides attacking each other's territory with profound strikes.
Regional officials said on Monday that Russian troops shelled the Hesen area in southern Ukraine, killing three people, including 19 of whom injured two children.
In addition, missile strikes and shelling around the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed five people and injured nine people, officials said.
Russia's defense agency reduced its defense by 162 Ukrainian drones overnight and on the Crimea's affiliated Ukrainian Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.
Ukrainian air force said Ukrainian defense measures were damaged 52 of the 80 drones launched overnight by Russia.
–Associated Press writer Suzan Frazer is located in Ankara, Turkiye; Hanna Arhirova of Kiev, Ukraine and Geir Moulson of Berlin contributed to the report.
