Ukraine and Russia will meet in Istanbul on Wednesday for their third round of talks since May, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, after Moscow intensified drone and missile strikes and Kyiv reported fresh civilian casualties.
Zelensky told his nightly video address on Monday he had spoken with Security Council chief Rustem Umerov about “preparations for a prisoner exchange and another meeting in Turkey with the Russian side”. Umerov said the session was set for Wednesday.
The Ukrainian leader urged new negotiations over the weekend, days after US President Donald Trump warned the Kremlin of “severe” sanctions if no ceasefire is reached within 50 days. Washington has also promised additional weapons for Kyiv’s forces.
Russia has not publicly confirmed its attendance. But RIA news agency, citing an unnamed source, said delegates would talk for two days, on Thursday and Friday. A Turkish government spokesperson told AFP the gathering would use the same venue as the fruitless May and June rounds, which yielded only limited prisoner swaps.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian commanders said troops repelled more than 50 Russian assaults around the eastern town of Pokrovsk, where Moscow has massed firepower for months. General Oleksandr Syrskyi added that Russian sabotage groups had already tried to infiltrate the city.
Overnight into Tuesday, a Russian glide bomb struck an apartment block in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, killing a child, local officials said. Earlier, drones and missiles hit six districts of the capital Kyiv.
The war, which has dragged on for more than three years, has seen a sharp rise in civilian casualties as the Kremlin steps up drone and missile barrages. Russia launched a full‑scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022.
Diplomats say this week’s discussions are expected to cover further prisoner exchanges and could lay the ground for a Zelensky‑Putin meeting, although expectations are low.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday the sides remained “diametrically opposed” and that “a lot of diplomatic work lies ahead”.
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Source: BBC, Reuters