Ukraine and Russia delegations, with Turkish mediators, in talks in Istanbul, May 16, 2025

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Trump — The Snake-Oil Salesman Who Got Played Like A Fiddle

Friday’s Coverage: “Russians Are Not Serious” About Direct Talks

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1831 GMT:

The German Foreign Office has echoed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s condemnation (see 1016 GMT) of the Russian murder of nine civilians in the Sumy region.

UPDATE 1803 GMT:

According to Russian officials and State media, their negotiators told Ukraine that Moscow will seize six regions — not four — and Crimea if Kyiv does not accept the Kremlin’s ultimatum.

Prominent State propagandists Yevgeny Popov and Margarita Simonyan exulted in the threat. Oliver Carroll of The Economist was told that the Russians “threatened to annex Kharkiv and Sumy if Ukraine doesn’t withdraw from 4 provinces Russia claims — but doesn’t fully control”.

UPDATE 1443 GMT:

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul announced tougher surveillance and additional sanctions on Russia’s “shadow fleet”, following suspected sabotage of underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

Wadepuhl said, “The threat has intensified over recent months. Severed cables, disrupted signals, and suspicious vessels are of serious concern to us.”

In recent months, a series of underwater cables have been damaged in the Baltic. Ships linked to Russian ports have been implicated.

Wadephul said Germany and its allies are responding to hybrid threats with increased patrols and renewed pressure on Russia’s covert shipping operations.

He asserted that the European Union will respond to the “direct security threat” with fresh sanctions on vessels: “This also helps Ukraine, because the shadow fleet moves oil every day that Russia sells around the sanctions.”

UPDATE 1429 GMT:

A Russia proxy court in occupied eastern Ukraine has sentenced Australian national Oscar Jenkins to 13 years in a high-security penal colony.

The “Supreme Court” of the Luhansk region found Jenkins guilty for participating in armed conflict as a mercenary.

Prosecutors claimed Jenkins arrived in Ukraine in February 2024 from Melbourne and deployed to the Donetsk region.

He was reported missing on December 16. Footage later that month showed him being interrogated and beaten.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong condemned the sentencing in the “sham trial”.

We continue to hold serious concerns for Mr. Jenkins. We are working with Ukraine and other partners, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to advocate for his welfare and release.

UPDATE 1424 GMT:

Ukraine’s military intelligence head, Kyrill Budanov, has said of a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner of war exchange with Russia, agreed in Thursday’s Istanbul talks, “I hope it will happen next week. I don’t see any major obstacles to this.”

UPDATE 1022 GMT:

At least 13 civilians have been killed and 32 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine in the past 24 hours.

Air defenses downed 36 of 62 drones, and six were lost to electronic counter-measures.

In addition to the nine people murdered in the Sumy region by a Russian drone strike on a bus (see 0706 and 1016 GMT), three people were killed in the Donetsk region in the east and one in neighboring Kharkiv.

Other casualties were reported from the Odesa and Kherson regions.

UPDATE 1016 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has posted about Russia’s mass killing of nine civilians, including an entire family, and injuring of seven, in the Sumy region this morning.

Pressure must be exerted on Russia to stop the killings. Without tougher sanctions, without stronger pressure, Russia will not seek real diplomacy. Yesterday in Istanbul, everyone saw a weak and unprepared Russian delegation without a meaningful mandate. This must change. Real steps are needed to end the war. We are expecting strong sanctions against Russia from the United States, from Europe, and from all our partners.

UPDATE 0706 GMT:

Nine civilians have been killed and seven injured by a Russian drone attack on a minibus in the Sumy region in northern Ukraine.

The vehicle, evacuating people from the area, was attacked near the city of Bilopillya.

Yurii Zarko, the head of the local administration, said:

This bus was carrying people out of the city for evacuation. The wounded were treated at the scene and then transferred to a hospital in Sumy.

We are currently retrieving the bodies. Some victims have not yet been identified. Most of them are elderly women, along with two or three men.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: As expected, direct Ukraine-Russia talks in Istanbul made little progress on Friday, as Moscow’s “lower-level” delegation stood on the Kremlin’s maximum demands for Kyiv’s capitulation.

A Ukrainian official summarized that the Russian demands were “non-starters and non-constructive conditions” that were “detached from reality and go far beyond anything that was previously discussed”.

The demands, as Russia again rejected a 30-day ceasefire, included the withdrawal of Kyiv’s troops from Ukrainian-controlled territory.

The Kremlin has insisted that Ukrainian forces leave parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east. This would enable Vladimir Putin to fulfil his September 2022 declaration that the four regions had been “annexed”.

After he and European partners briefed Donald Trump by phone, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “Russia has not changed its basic approach….They are doing everything they can to turn this Istanbul meeting into a staged, empty process.”

He called on Europe, the US, and the international community to step up sanctions on Moscow.

Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance.

Our position — if the Russians reject a full and unconditional ceasefire and an end to killings, tough sanctions must follow. Pressure on Russia must be maintained until Russia is ready to end the war.

French President Emmanuel Macron echoed:

By rejecting the ceasefire and dialogue with Ukraine, Russia shows it does not want peace and is merely trying to buy time by continuing the war….

We will continue to coordinate with our European partners, the United States, and the Coalition of the willing to define a united response.

Even Donald Trump chided Vladimir Putin, telling Fox TV when asked about sanctioning Russia:

Honestly, I will, if we’re not gonna make a deal. This is turkey time, we’re talking turkey, and we’ll see what happens. This would be crushing for Russia because they’re having a hard time now with the economy, oil prices are low.

But he softened the warning as he said he intends to meet the Russian leader soon: “I have a very good relationship with Putin. I think we’ll make a deal. We have to get together, and I think we’ll probably schedule it.”

He claimed, “Putin is at the table. He wanted this meeting… I think Putin is tired of this whole thing. And he’s not looking good, and he wants to look good.”

Agreement on a POW Exchange

The talks ran into trouble even before they began on Friday afternoon in Istanbul.

After Ukraine conferred with Turkish mediators and US representatives, Russia’s delegation demanded that Turkey’s officials — including Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and head of intelligence İbrahim Kalın — stay out of the room when they met with the Ukrainians.

Kyiv’s group held their ground, and Fidan opened the session with the Russians. Ukraine was represented by Defense Secretary Rustem Umerov, Foreign Secretary Andrii Sybiha, and Presidential Chief of Staff Andrii Yermak. Russia sent no minister — instead, it relied on Vladimir Putin’s Vladimir Medinsky, who headed Moscow’s delegation in March-April 2022 talks in Istanbul.

The two sides did agree on a 1,000-for-1,000 exchange of prisoners of war.