In a major diplomatic development, Russia and Ukraine have resumed direct talks for the first time in over three years, with both sides agreeing to work on a roadmap to peace. The negotiations, held amid continued Western involvement in the conflict, mark a fragile but notable shift.
However, Moscow's lead negotiator warns that unless the core causes of the war are acknowledged, history may repeat itself. While Russia emphasizes addressing the roots of the conflict, Kiev’s European allies criticize Moscow, accusing it of undermining peace efforts and shifting blame.
As the world watches closely, the question remains: Can diplomacy truly succeed, or will external pressures derail progress once again?
00:00And rumblings from Kiev, direct talks between Russia and Ukraine have taken place in Istanbul.
00:07It was the first time in more than three years that officials from the warring parties have come together at the same table.
00:14Now, Russia's top negotiator said that the sides agreed on a number of concrete steps.
00:20And while some criticized the lack of many results from the meeting, he advised on drawing lessons from history.
00:27Many people are talking about a ceasefire, 30 days, 60 days, it doesn't matter.
00:34First a truce and then negotiations to achieve peace.
00:38That's what some people are saying, people who don't know history at all.
00:42As a rule, as Napoleon always said, war and negotiations are conducted simultaneously.
00:48Bismarck, who was ambassador to St. Petersburg for many years, always said,
00:52never try to deceive the Russians or steal anything from them because time will pass.
00:58And sooner or later, the Russians always come back for what's theirs.
01:02That, I think, is a very important lesson from history.
01:06Even though the meeting was quite brief in terms of how long it could have been going on,
01:13the outcome and the general message from, in fact, both negotiating teams has been quite optimistic, cautiously.
01:22But still, it has been a bit, well, rather positive, I have to say, according to the Russian side.
01:28And that has been pretty much confirmed by the Ukrainian leader of the delegation, Ukraine's defense minister.
01:34Pidinsky has stressed also that in Russia's view and from Russia's standpoint,
01:40well, this is a direct continuation of talks that took place back in 2022
01:45and that it views them as yet another round of those talks.
01:51And so this was more than rather a break in negotiations rather than a complete flop.
01:58So this is where they're taking it from.
02:00The direct talks with the Ukrainian side, organized upon the initiative of the Russian president, have just ended.
02:07In general, we are satisfied with the result and are ready to continue contacts.
02:13In the coming days, there will be a large-scale exchange of prisoners, 1,000 for 1,000.
02:18The Ukrainian side has requested direct talks between the heads of state.
02:23We have taken this request into consideration.
02:25We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and describe it in detail.
02:33After such a vision is presented, we believe we should, and this has also been agreed upon, continue our negotiations.
02:41The ones who were left rather irritated by the outcome was Europe.
02:47A criticism kept pouring in from abroad as they were meeting with Zelensky in Albania, the so-called coalition of the willing.
02:56They weren't willing to accept the result of the talks, and they continued to basically bash Russia, accusing Russia of stalling the negotiating processes, of not being committed to peace,
03:11even though it was Moscow that came up with the idea and set the date and the place and even the time, pretty much, for these peace talks.
03:20Russia shows it does not want peace and is merely trying to buy time by continuing the war.
03:25The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.
03:31Russia had a good opportunity to hold initial talks on a peace agreement with a prior ceasefire agreement.
03:37We are very disappointed that this did not take place.
03:40As for the Ukrainian side, well, again, as I've mentioned, they have been quite positive,
03:46and they provided their own view as to and their own look on how these negotiations,
03:53how this first round in over three years of face-to-face talks between Russia and Ukraine has fared.
03:59We've been directed by President Zelensky to come for the negotiations.
04:06Our first priority was people, and that's why we negotiated to free 1,000 people,
04:14and we reached to a conclusion, reached to an agreement to exchange 1,000 people.
04:20It is an important achievement, and that once again shows that we are focused to finalize this war.
04:30The second objective was to discuss ceasefire.
04:35We exchanged some modalities, and our teams will be working on exchanging the details.
04:43The third objective was our president was expecting the high-level discussions in here,
04:55and I think the next step would be that the leaders-level meeting should be organized.
05:02So when it comes to these negotiations, it is clear that the humanitarian impact has already been,
05:09well, it has been very important after all.
05:11Again, remember, the prisoners-of-war swap, the captive swap is going to be truly unprecedented for this conflict.
05:19But at the same time, there has been concerns that really these direct face-to-face talks between Russia and Ukraine,
05:26they can only achieve so much.
05:28Basically, they can only achieve something on a more of a tactical level.
05:33Because given how difficult it was to get Ukraine to send a delegation here,
05:37how difficult it was to have Ukraine actually agree to engage in, well, in talks with Russia face-to-face,
05:45tete-ta-tete, it really raised concerns, not just in Russia, but also abroad, in Washington,
05:52that maybe, maybe much more progress can be made if this whole thing could be just streamlined and fast-tracked.
06:01How can this be done? Well, through a face-to-face meeting between the leaders,
06:06but not the ones you might be thinking about, rather between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
06:11I think it's time for us to just do it.
06:13I said, you know, they all said Putin was going and Zelensky was going,
06:18and I said, if I don't go, I guarantee Putin's not going.
06:21And he didn't go.
06:22And I understand that, but we're going to get it.
06:25We're going to get it done. We've got to get it done.
06:27When do you think you'll meet the president?
06:28As soon as we can set it up.
06:31So, anyway, we all became witness to one historic event already.
06:36That is the Russians and the Ukrainians sitting together in the same room,
06:41looking in each other's eyes, and maybe that alone helped them to begin
06:47and will help them to begin to overcome the animosity any of the sides may or may not have
06:53towards the side that they consider an enemy.
06:58And certainly the next round of rounds of talks, which have been announced already
07:03and teased already, they will show just how much further the sides can get
07:08in this long, long and protracted process and road to peace.
07:14All right, my colleague Niki Iran is in Istanbul and has been bringing us details and perspectives
07:22to the talks in Turkey.
07:23Niki, it's over to you now.
07:25Good morning to you, Mike.
07:31Yeah, it's been an extraordinary week set into motion with that bombshell statement
07:36from the Russian President Vladimir Putin in the early hours of Sunday morning
07:40when he proposed the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in years.
07:46And the week has ended with a positive step forward for diplomacy
07:51as the two delegations came face-to-face for the first time since March 2022.
07:57The setting was the stunning Dolmabacha Palace in Istanbul,
08:02an Ottoman-era landmark on the shores of the Bosphorus,
08:06and kicking off 24 hours later, then scheduled with a short statement
08:11from the host country's Foreign Minister, Hakan Fadan,
08:15who said the delegations have two paths to choose from.
08:19The first is a path towards peace, the second to more death and destruction.
08:25Now, the talks wrapped up after around two hours.
08:28A short statement from the head of the Russian delegation, Mr. Modinsky, was given,
08:33and he said he was satisfied with the outcome of the talks,
08:36which included a plan to continue the dialogue between the two delegations,
08:41as well as the most significant prisoner swap to date.
08:46However, somewhat bizarrely, the response from some European countries has been very different.
08:52The British Prime Minister, Kiyos Starmer, for example,
08:55called the outcome of the talks clearly unacceptable.
09:00I'm joined now in the studio by my guest, Andrey Telizhenko,
09:04veteran diplomat and former advisor to the Ukrainian prosecutor general.
09:08Many thanks for coming in this morning to see me.
09:10So, differences in the perspectives of how these talks went.
09:16Because, in my opinion, coming together, these two sides,
09:20after three years and actually discussing anything,
09:25and a significant prisoner swap coming out of it as well,
09:28is a very good step forward in my eyes.
09:30Why are we getting such a different response from the European countries?
09:34Of course it's a great step forward.
09:35It's a historical step forward, even though it might not all be well at some point.
09:40It will have so many differences, but hopefully it will not have those differences.
09:45It's a great historical move forward towards peace, not World War III.
09:50Why are they all so mad about this, the Europeans, they're making those announcements?
09:56Because they're the ones who want to push this war and continue this war forward.
10:00Zelensky's was making deals with them right before the meetings,
10:04so they would push him into having more cards on the table for him to negotiate
10:09and maybe go away from these negotiations here in Istanbul, as they did in 2022.
10:17They also are not happy about this because they're not the ones who are pushing this.
10:21They're not in the narrative.
10:23That's why President Tusk and also Prime Minister Starmer are basically going around and saying,
10:32this is just terrible.
10:35It's not terrible.
10:36It's peace.
10:37You have to deal with it now.
10:39There's a new administration in Washington.
10:41Moscow was pushing for this for years and years and years, and now it's happening.
10:46Thank God.
10:46Hopefully it will happen.
10:48Yesterday's interview with Trump, talking about Ukraine, talking about what's happening on the ground,
10:54he said Zelensky doesn't have the cards.
10:56He doesn't have the cards to move forward.
10:59Russia, even then, is giving a chance for peace negotiations, for this prisoner swap,
11:05to move forward and not through the battlefield, but through diplomacy.
11:08And this is a great example of how great leaders work.
11:13And unfortunately, the losers here are Ukraine, not the Ukrainians, but the key regime itself,
11:18and the Europeans, the warmongers.
11:20During the negotiations on Friday, the Ukrainian delegation requested a face-to-face meeting between the Ukrainian leader and the Russian president.
11:30What do you think will come first?
11:33Will it be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin, or will it be a meeting between Trump and Putin?
11:39Because we know that Donald Trump has said, nothing's going to happen until I have a face-to-face meeting with Putin,
11:46something Marco Rubio has said as well.
11:48I think Putin-Trump meeting will happen first, maybe not even one, then Zelensky will come second.
11:54Because this meeting in Istanbul that happened yesterday, it's a footstep towards the bigger picture,
12:05towards the dialogue between Moscow and Washington, which was ruined throughout the former administration, Biden administration.
12:12It was undermined by the Obama administration in Trump's first term.
12:15And now it's getting back on track.
12:18And these countries are talking between each other.
12:21Ukraine is just in the middle of all this.
12:22It's a side dish that will be put onto the table at one point, again, to be discussed.
12:28But what is going on in between right now with Moscow and Washington is the main step that is going to lead to these peace talks happening.
12:37And maybe one day Zelensky meeting Putin, or maybe it will not even lead to that.
12:41Maybe there's going to be something different in Ukraine that will be agreed upon with Washington and Moscow together
12:47that will lead to more and faster peace without even Zelensky being in place as the president of Ukraine,
12:54even though he's not a legitimate president by the constitution of Ukraine today.
12:59Trump's presidency and his perspective of the conflict in Ukraine has been a major factor in getting us to this point.
13:08Speaking yesterday, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, he said that the talks between Trump and Putin could happen in the next days or hours.
13:20We assume he's making a telephone call, not face-to-face.
13:24And I'm paraphrasing what he said now.
13:26He said we need to be careful.
13:27Why is he having this seemingly panicked response to a potential talk between Trump and Putin?
13:35Of course, because even the talk that happened yesterday between Zelensky and Trump led them to understand that Trump is not going to go their path.
13:44Trump is not going to go to the war monitoring path with Europe.
13:47Trump is not going to support Europe in the process of financing the key regime, the boots on the ground, military-wise, anything that's concerned with war.
13:56So they are now understanding that the reality for Europe is going to change.
14:01What are the European leaders going to tell to their population with this war ending and the truth is going to start coming out,
14:08that this war could have been evaded.
14:10We could have not had this war and we could have had peace.
14:13Europe could have been more prosperous.
14:14People would not have paid for gas prices, for electricity prices three times as much.
14:18Businesses would not have gone down in Europe.
14:20So they are now facing the truth in Europe and what to do next.
14:24And that's why they're so in a panic mode.
14:27They're losing their, basically, contracts on the military-industry complex, which is backing these leaders in Europe,
14:34Macron, the banking sector, and Mertz, Councillor Mertz from the BlackRock.
14:39So this is what the reality of the world is changing.
14:42The world is changing in a shift where America is now understanding that Russia is another power that you have to respect,
14:49you have to deal with in Europe, has not become a power.
14:53It became something in between that will have to come back on its stage at one point.
14:57But now it's not their time.
14:59Andrei Talizhenko, many thanks for joining me again to analyze every side of what's been happening here in Istanbul.
15:07Thank you for now.
15:07Thank you very much.
15:08And handing you back over to our HQ in Moscow now.
15:13Many thanks for joining us for this special coverage from Istanbul.
15:19All right.
15:20Thank you, Niki.
15:20We believe that getting both sides in the same room at the same time is huge progress already.
15:27Thank you very much.
15:28We look forward to the coming days, how things will pan out.
15:31Now, the delegation have agreed to meet again.
15:36While the date is unclear, there's one thing you can be sure about,
15:40and that will bring you the latest updates to you immediately on air and online.
