U.S. President Donald Trump has urged Moscow and Kyiv to work together on a deal to end their three-year-old war, and Russia has proposed a second round of face-to-face talks with Ukrainian officials next week in Istanbul.
“For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,“ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on X on Friday after hosting Turkey’s foreign minister for talks in Kyiv.
Delegations from the two countries met in Istanbul on May 16 but the session yielded little other than an agreement for a prisoner exchange.
“There must be a ceasefire to move further toward peace. The killing of people must stop,“ Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
He did not commit Ukraine to attending on Monday, although he said he and Erdogan did discuss the possibility of organising a four-way meeting with the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United States.
Some Republicans in the U.S. Congress and White House advisers have urged Trump to finally embrace new sanctions on Russia to put pressure on Moscow.
Graham, who met Zelenskiy in Kyiv, told a news briefing he had talked with Trump before his trip and the U.S. president expects concrete actions now from Moscow.
“The game that Putin has been playing is about to change. He is going to be hit, and hit hard by the United States, when it comes to sanctions,“ Graham said.
The war, the biggest in Europe since World War Two, began with a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Nevertheless, both Kyiv and Moscow are keen to demonstrate to Trump they support his peace efforts. Kyiv wants more U.S. military aid, while Moscow hopes Trump will ease existing economic sanctions on Russia.
“Everyone is focused on the direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations. A list of conditions for a temporary truce is being developed,“ Peskov said.
NO MORE NATO ENLARGEMENT?
Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said on Friday that Russia's concern over the eastward enlargement of NATO was fair and Washington did not want to see Ukraine in the U.S.-led military alliance.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters in Kyiv that the next step after talks in Istanbul would be to try to host a meeting between Trump, Putin, and Zelenskiy.
“We want to end this war this year, and we are interested in establishing a truce, whether it is for 30 days, or for 50 days, or for 100 days,“ he said.
Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that Moscow was ready to consider a ceasefire provided Western states stopped arming Ukraine and Kyiv stopped mobilising troops.
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