Russia-Ukraine war updates: Kyiv, Moscow agree to POW exchange

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For more context on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing ceasefire efforts, read our takeaways from today’s talks here.

Or learn more about Ukraine’s surprise attack on Russia, dubbed “Operation Spider’s Web”, and what it could mean for the war, here.

This live page will be closed soon. Here were today’s top events:

• Russian and Ukrainian delegations met for the second time in Turkiye in recent weeks but reached no breakthrough in ending the war.
• Still, both sides agreed to a massive prisoner swap and the repatriation of bodies of thousands of soldiers killed during the war. Ukraine also presented a list of children it said were abducted and taken to Russia.
• Russia gave Ukraine a memorandum for a peace proposal with one provision again calling for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, a position Kyiv has repeatedly rejected.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped to host a future leader-level meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and possibly US President Donald Trump.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Andrey Fedorov, a former deputy foreign minister of Russia, says there was not much progress in today’s talks and both Russia and Ukraine are still at odds on key points.

“All the main political questions were left unopened,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that while both sides presented the other with memoranda for peace proposals, they were “very contradictory to each other”.

“Especially concerning an unconditional, immediate ceasefire. Russia doesn’t want it, and this is the key problem,” he said.

He added Ukraine would not accept Moscow’s “maximalist” position calling for Ukraine to cede parts of its territory to Russia, noting that would go against the Ukrainian Constitution.

The head of the Russian delegation says he met with Ukraine’s defence minister before the wider talks today.

Medinsky told the TASS news agency that the direct meeting helped pave the way for the talks between the two delegations, according to TASS.

The second meeting of the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkiye resulted in an agreement to swap prisoners.

However, major breakthroughs for a ceasefire remained elusive.

Watch the recap below:

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has been asked if Trump would attend a meeting with Zelenskyy and Putin suggested today by Erdogan.

Trump is “open to it and wants leaders to sit down at the table”, Leavitt said before deferring further questions to Trump.

Trump entered office in January promising to swiftly end the war in Ukraine. But his early efforts, which included taking a hard line with Zelenskyy, failed to gain traction. He has become increasingly critical of Putin as he has made little progress.

The US president has previously floated the possibility of attending a leader-level meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin although no such meeting has yet happened.

The chief of staff to the Ukrainian president says that Russia does not want a ceasefire and that new sanctions are needed now to force it to pursue peace.

Andriy Yermak posted the comment on messaging platform Telegram, hours after the conclusion of peace talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian delegations.

“The Russians are doing everything to not cease firing and continue the war. New sanctions now are very important,” Yermak wrote.

More details from the ceasefire memorandum given to the Ukrainian delegation by Russia have emerged.

The memorandum contains two parts.

The first is described as the “main parameters of the final settlement”. It calls for Ukraine to recognise the territories claimed by Russia as Russian, maintain neutrality, reduce the number of its soldiers and refuse to demand reparations. Moscow also demands the lifting of all sanctions.

A second option is called a “package proposal” and includes demands that include kick-starting Ukrainian demobilisation, ceasing the supplies of foreign weapons, lifting of martial law, and holding presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine.

Ukraine has not yet responded.

The United Kingdom today released its “strategic defence review”, a 10-month study of its defence capabilities and emerging threats.

Russia loomed large, with the report saying that the war in Ukraine “makes unequivocally clear [Russia’s] willingness to use force to achieve its goals, as well as its intent to re-establish spheres of influence in its near-abroad and disrupt the international order to the UK and its allies’ disadvantage”.

It added that, while the war in Ukraine has “temporarily degraded Russian conventional land forces”, it continues to pose an enduring threat in “key areas such as space, cyberspace, information operations, undersea warfare, and chemical and biological weapons”.

The report, which said the UK must continue to support Ukraine in the war, added: “Russia’s war economy, if sustained, will enable it to rebuild its land capabilities more quickly in the event of a ceasefire in Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian leader has addressed the country in an online news briefing following today’s talks in Istanbul.

He gave further details on the prisoner swap agreed to at the meeting, saying Russia and Ukraine would exchange 1,000 prisoners each, with the possibility of swapping an additional 200 prisoners of war.

Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian negotiators gave their Russian counterparts a list of nearly 400 children it wanted Russia to return home to Ukraine, but that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning only 10 of them.

He added that Ukraine’s recent attack on Russia, code-named “Operation Spider’s Web”, had helped to restore confidence among allies that Ukraine is able to continue waging the war against Russia’s invasion.

At today’s meeting, Russia yet again refused to accept a 30-day, comprehensive, unconditional ceasefire. Instead, it suggested a much shorter three-day ceasefire to facilitate the exchange of bodies of soldiers.

So what we have right now is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, the host and mediator of this meeting, saying that this meeting went great.

The next logical step, according to Erdogan, is to have the meeting of leaders with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with US President Donald Trump likely to attend such a meeting.

But Moscow has been reluctant to accept any such proposals so far, saying a lot of groundwork needs to be done.

Attacks between Russia and Ukraine have increased in intensity before the talks in Istanbul.

On Sunday, Ukrainian drones targeted airbases deep inside Russia in a large-scale operation.

The Russian Defence Ministry said planes caught fire at two military sites.

Al Jazeera Defence Editor Alex Gatopoulos has more on the significance of the Ukrainian drone attacks:

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Oleksiy Gancharenko says he believes Ukraine’s latest attack on Russia will possibly “make clear to Russia they will not achieve their goals” in the war.

However, he said he remained “pessimistic” that the latest round of talks would lead to any breakthroughs.

“I think Russia still wants to continue the war, and the only thing which can stop them right now is very harsh sanctions from the United States,” he said.

US Senator Lindsey Graham has said he expected there would soon be movement on a potentially crippling Russian sanctions package in Congress.

Greenpeace activists have stolen a wax figure of French President Emmanuel Macron, placing it in front of the Russian embassy in Paris as part of a pro-Ukraine protest.

Two women and a man entered the Grevin Museum, posing as tourists, and then changed their clothes to disguise themselves as workers, a police source told the AFP news agency.

The activists slipped out through an emergency exit with the statue, valued at 40,000 euros ($45,714).

The statue was then placed in front of the Russian embassy to highlight appeals for France to stop importing gas and fertiliser from Russia during the war.

Eighteen months in the making, Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb saw hundreds of AI-trained drones target military aircraft deep inside Russia.

Zelenskyy said Sunday’s attack will go down in history as he put forward a new proposal for an unconditional ceasefire as the two countries met in Istanbul.

Al Jazeera’s Inside Story hears from a panel of experts on the significance of the attack – and what comes next.

Guests:

• Hanna Shelest – Security Studies Program director at the Ukrainian Prism think tank
• Pavel Felgenhauer – independent defence analyst
• Anatol Lieven – Eurasia Program Director at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

The exchange of prisoners seems to be the diplomatic channel that actually works between Russia and Ukraine.

We’ve actually had exchanges of prisoners throughout this war, not in the numbers that have been happening as a result of these Istanbul talks.

As a result of the first round of talks, we had the biggest exchange, which is around 1,000 people.

The two sides have agreed to this all-for-all exchange of sick, ill, wounded soldiers and young soldiers aged 18 to 25.

The Russian delegation actually said that this all-for-all scheme translates to a number from 1,000 to 1,200 soldiers on each side, and that would mean, again, that this is the biggest prisoner exchange that has happened between the countries.

When it comes to other issues discussed by Ukraine and Russia, it feels like talks there are much slower and that communication only happens so far in Istanbul.

Here are the latest updates:

• Russian and Ukrainian delegations have completed a meeting in Istanbul, agreeing to a prisoner swap and to turn over the bodies of about 6,000 soldiers.
• Russia said the two sides have exchanged memoranda with terms for an agreement for a more lasting ceasefire, although no immediate breakthroughs were announced.
• Ukraine has suggested a new meeting with Russia by the end of June, although Russia has not committed to the meeting.
• Despite today’s talks being relatively brief, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed them as “magnificent”, while floating the idea of hosting three leaders – Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the US’s Donald Trump – for a peace summit in the future.

Ukrainian drones struck multiple military airbases deep inside Russia on Sunday in a major operation a day before the peace talks in Istanbul.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine had launched drone strikes targeting Russian military airfields across five regions, causing several aircraft to catch fire.

But Sunday’s attacks were only the latest in a series of audacious hits on Russian military facilities, territory and symbols of power over the past three years of war – often acknowledged by Kyiv and in some cases widely believed to have been carried out by Ukrainian special forces.

Read more here.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the Russia-Ukraine peace talks held in Istanbul “magnificent”.

Erdogan said at a news conference in Ankara that he wants to host the Russian, Ukrainian and American presidents in his country.

“My greatest wish is to bring together Putin and Zelenskyy in Istanbul or Ankara and even add Trump along,” he said.

“If they accept, I also would like to join them in this meeting,” the Turkish president added.

He said he will be taking steps to achieve this goal as soon as possible.