Moscow, Kyiv agree on more prisoner swap

ISTANBUL — Russia and Ukraine agreed on another prisoner swap on Wednesday at a brief session of peace talks in Istanbul, but the sides remained far apart on ceasefire terms and a possible meeting of their leaders.

Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky and Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov led the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, respectively.

After the talks, Medinsky told reporters that Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange 1,200 more prisoners of war each. Russia has returned the bodies of 7,000 fallen Ukrainian soldiers and is ready to return 3,000 more, he said.

A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not being considered until certain processes are completed, he added.

Medinsky said the point of a leaders' meeting should be to sign an agreement, not to "discuss everything from scratch".

He renewed Moscow's call for a series of short ceasefires of 24-48 hours to enable the retrieval of bodies. Ukraine says it wants an immediate and much longer ceasefire.

Medinsky said Moscow was working through a list of 339 Ukrainian children that Kyiv accuses it of abducting. Russia denies that charge and says it has offered protection to children separated from their parents during the conflict.

Following the talks, Zelensky wrote on X that the ninth stage of prisoner exchange took place "today", which involved more than 1,000 people from the Ukrainian side, including those "seriously ill and severely wounded".

"It is important that the exchanges are ongoing," he wrote.

"We have progress on the humanitarian track, with no progress on a cessation of hostilities," Ukraine's chief delegate Umerov said after talks that lasted just 40 minutes.

The talks took place just over a week after US President Donald Trump threatened heavy new sanctions on Russia and countries that buy its exports unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days.

Before the talks, the Kremlin had played down expectations, describing the two sides' positions as diametrically opposed and saying no one should expect miracles.

At 40 minutes, the meeting was even shorter than the two sides' previous encounters on May 16 and June 2 — which lasted a combined total of under three hours.

Early on Thursday, Ukraine and Russia launched drone strikes against each other, officials from both sides said, within hours of the conclusion of the talks.

Xinhua - Agencies