Russia Rejects Ukraine Ceasefire Initiative at Istanbul Meeting

Executive Summary:

• On May 16, in Istanbul, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met for the first time in more than three years of war to discuss a ceasefire.
• The Kremlin rejected this Western-backed initiative, countered with an old set of ceasefire preconditions, and introduced more insurmountable conditions at the Istanbul meeting.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also hoped to use the Istanbul talks to arrange a personal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin holds out the possibility of such a meeting contingent on Ukrainian ceasefire proposals acceptable to Russia.
• Moscow portrays the Istanbul meeting and possible follow-up negotiations stemming from Russian-drafted “agreements” offered to Ukraine in Istanbul in March–April 2022. There were no such “agreements,” but Russia wants to incorporate parts of its own 2022 drafts into the terms of settlement.

On May 16, in Istanbul, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in person for the first time in more than three years of full-scale war to discuss a possible ceasefire-in-place. U.S. President Donald Trump had forcefully urged Kyiv and Moscow to hold this meeting with a few days’ advance notice. Kyiv’s closest European partners seconded Trump’s initiative, threatening Moscow with another round of European sanctions if it did not cooperate (EurActiv, May 10).

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had last met face-to-face in Istanbul in March 2022, four weeks into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (see EDM, March 17, 22, 2022). They had continued negotiations by videoconference between Kyiv and Moscow until late April 2022, referenced as the “Istanbul process.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has falsely claimed ever since that Kyiv had accepted the Russian-drafted terms of settlement. Moscow, therefore, portrays the resumption of talks as stemming from those alleged “agreements,” and wants any further negotiations to incorporate the draft documents from the 2022 Istanbul process (see below).

Unlike that original iteration, however, the May 16 Istanbul meeting narrowly focused on a ceasefire that could open the way to a negotiated settlement, or at least “freeze” the hostilities. Russia imposed its own agenda on this meeting—a one-sided presentation of Moscow’s preconditions for a ceasefire.

Kyiv and its European partners had all hoped that Moscow would accept a comprehensive ceasefire (land, air, sea) for at least 30 days, without preconditions. In their view, a ceasefire should precede any political-diplomatic process. Otherwise, Ukraine would be negotiating under the gun. They also hoped Moscow’s delegation would seamlessly proceed to a broader political dialogue in the same meeting. They, therefore, wished to see a high-level Russian delegation with the necessary authority to start that dialogue in Istanbul. Those hopes turned out again to be unfounded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy additionally hoped to use the opportunity of the Istanbul talks to arrange a personal meeting with Putin. The Ukrainian president gave his delegation in Istanbul a two-fold mandate: for a Russian-Ukrainian unconditional, comprehensive ceasefire and a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting (Ukrinform, May 15).

Zelenskyy had repeatedly sought a personal meeting with Putin, each time from positions of weakness (also during the March–April 2022 Istanbul process). Still, he gave up that quest in September 2022 in response to Russia’s official annexation of four Ukrainian mainland provinces (see EDM, October 5, 2022). Zelenskyy’s revigorated attempt to meet with Putin appears to be a hedging move, probably stemming at least in part from fear of U.S. abandonment and a White House-Kremlin “deal” that could bypass Ukraine and Europe alike. Hoping against hope that Putin would arrive in Türkiye on this occasion, Zelenskyy flew there himself demonstratively (YouTube/PresidentGovUa, May 15).

The Russian delegation in Istanbul rejected the sequence “ceasefire first, peace negotiations afterward” out of hand. According to Russia’s chief delegate, Vladimir Medinsky—a Ukrainian-born Russian imperial historiographer and senior aide to Putin—Moscow regards war-fighting and negotiations as parallel processes (TASS, May 16). This approach by no means rules out a ceasefire, but would only accept one that gives Russia decisive military advantages.

Instead of an unconditional ceasefire, therefore, the Russian delegation added new preconditions on top of those already on record. Ukrainian officials disclosed the additional preconditions (or some of them) to Western and Ukrainian media in Istanbul and Kyiv (Reuters; Bloomberg; Ukrainska Pravda, May 17). These include:

• Ukraine will recognize Russia’s incorporation of Crimea and the entirety of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson provinces.
• Ukrainian troops will withdraw from the portions they still hold in those four mainland provinces.
• No Western troops (from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states) will oversee an eventual armistice on Ukraine’s remaining territory.
• Kyiv will renounce its claims to Russia for war damage reparations.

The Kremlin has attached those preconditions to a ceasefire agreement but has also listed them as elements of an eventual political settlement.

Informally, Medinsky warned that Russian forces could advance into Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Sumy provinces—of which Russia now holds small portions—unless Kyiv accepts Russia’s preconditions to a ceasefire (Ukrainska Pravda, May 17). Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has declined to confirm or deny those demands, citing diplomatic secrecy (TASS, May 17).

In March of this year, Putin detailed a first set of preconditions in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s quest for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Dubbed as “nuances” by Putin, they include (see EDM, March 21, 28, April 1):

• The halting of the mobilization of Ukrainian civilians into the armed forces and the resupply of Ukrainian forces with military equipment for the duration of a ceasefire. There would be no reciprocal steps by Russia.
• The complete cessation of external military assistance to Ukraine and intelligence sharing during negotiations toward a political-diplomatic settlement. Again, this would only apply to Ukraine, not Russia.

Moscow has continually alluded to Putin’s ceasefire-related “nuances” since then (RBC, May 10). Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did so again in the runup to the Istanbul meeting (TASS, May 9).

During the meeting, Medinsky warned that Russia could keep “fighting forever [вечно, vechno]” in Ukraine, citing Russia’s 21-year-long, ultimately victorious Great Northern War (1700–1721), as shared by Ukrainian delegates with The Economist’s foreign correspondent Oliver Carroll (X/@olliecarroll via Ukrainska Pravda, May 16). Medinsky chose this reference because the decisive battle in 1709 occurred in Ukraine, resulting in its subjugation for the ensuing 200 years.

The talks in Istanbul took less than two hours because the Russian side avoided negotiations, merely presenting its demands. According to Medinsky’s and Peskov’s readouts, Moscow and Kyiv have agreed to exchange detailed documents with their respective “visions of a possible future ceasefire” (TASS, May 16 [1], [2]). No specific date is set for this exchange. Russia would continue the talks “assuming an appropriate (целесообразное, tselesoobraznoe) vision” from Ukraine.

According to Medinsky’s readout, the Ukrainian side “requested direct talks between the Russian and Ukrainian heads of state. The Russian side has taken note of this request (TASS, May 16). Upon further consideration, Peskov held out the possibility of a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting, provided that it would cap the results of joint work in the form of certain bilateral documents (TASS, May 17).

Additionally, Moscow and Kyiv will exchange prisoners of war on a 1,000 for 1,000 basis, which would be the largest one-time exchange of prisoners in this war thus far (Ukrainska Pravda, May 17).

The Ukrainian chief delegate, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, confirmed in his readout that Ukraine seeks a full, unconditional ceasefire and an eventual end to the war, and in the meantime, “direct negotiations at the highest level,” presumably Zelenskyy-Putin. The Ukrainian side also demands that Russia repatriate the children it has forcibly removed from Ukraine—an issue that the Russian readout omits (Ukrinform, May 16).

Moscow falsely claims that Kyiv had accepted Russian-imposed settlement terms in the March–April 2022 Istanbul process (see EDM, March 17, 22, 30, 31, April 4, 5, 2022). Portraying that process as, in effect, Russian-acquired gains, the Kremlin characterizes the May 16 meeting and any follow-up negotiations as a continuation of the 2022 Istanbul process. To drive home this point, Medinsky and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, a three-star general, are the same people who led the Russian negotiating team three years ago.

Ukraine and the “European core” (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the European Commission) are responding to the Istanbul meeting with calls for additional, more effective sanctions on Russia. The Trump administration has initiated another round of telephone calls from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and from Trump to Putin (RBC Ukraine, May 18; The Kyiv Independent, May 19). The Kremlin looks set to respond by invoking its two sets of preconditions for a ceasefire that could, if accepted, only perpetuate an unresolved conflict, not even a “frozen” one.