- 6/2/2025
🌍 The world watches closely as Russia and Ukraine hold their 2nd round of peace talks in Türkiye 🇹🇷, while Ukrainian drone strikes target Russian military airfields 🚁💥 just before negotiations.
An eyewitness shares their brave attempt to stop the UAV launch 🚫✈️. Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ramps up military production ⚙️🛡️, preparing for a larger conflict despite talks of peace in Europe 🤝🕊️.
Stay tuned for the latest updates on this critical moment in global security! 🔥🌐
#RussiaUkraineConflict #UkraineDroneStrike #TurkeyTalks #PeaceNegotiations #Istanbul #KeirStarmer #MilitaryBuildUp #GlobalSecurity #WarAndPeace #UAVStrike #EuropeanConflict #RussiaNews #UkraineNews #BreakingNews #InternationalRelations #ConflictUpdate #WorldNews #Diplomacy #DefenseNews #SecurityAlert
An eyewitness shares their brave attempt to stop the UAV launch 🚫✈️. Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ramps up military production ⚙️🛡️, preparing for a larger conflict despite talks of peace in Europe 🤝🕊️.
Stay tuned for the latest updates on this critical moment in global security! 🔥🌐
#RussiaUkraineConflict #UkraineDroneStrike #TurkeyTalks #PeaceNegotiations #Istanbul #KeirStarmer #MilitaryBuildUp #GlobalSecurity #WarAndPeace #UAVStrike #EuropeanConflict #RussiaNews #UkraineNews #BreakingNews #InternationalRelations #ConflictUpdate #WorldNews #Diplomacy #DefenseNews #SecurityAlert
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NewsTranscript
00:00Well, all eyes are on Istanbul, where the second round of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine is taking place today.
00:15Well, the talks have now wrapped up.
00:17The Turkish foreign minister voiced an optimistic outlook as he opened the session earlier today.
00:23Take a listen.
00:23We are actually continuing to discuss the ceasefire and peace perspectives of both parties.
00:31We will also be talking about taking one more step pertaining to the exchange of prisoners of war.
00:36And we are also hoping to discuss the preparations for the leaders' meeting.
00:40Conducting fruitful meetings and frequent meetings is beneficial for both sides.
00:45And by putting forward the positions, we will be limiting the disagreements, and we will pave the path for peace.
00:50The talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations has officially wrapped up, lasting for over just an hour.
00:58And, of course, from what we know so far is that the talks were, in fact, just two hours delayed.
01:04It was officially, the talks were initially supposed to start at 1 p.m. local time, but kicked off at around three, to be precise, quarter to three.
01:13And according to the reports, what's interesting is that the talks were reportedly held in Russian language.
01:20Because if we remember, if we take back our viewers in time, we remember that the last talks, during the last talks, the Ukrainian delegation actually had a translator present.
01:30And, of course, the Russian delegation was led by Vladimir Medinsky, who also participated in Russia-Ukraine talks back in Istanbul on May 16th and during the talks in March of 2022.
01:47And Ukraine's chief negotiator was and is Rostem Ulmerov, who's also Ukraine's defense minister.
01:55And the place where the talks were held is just right behind me, just across the Bosphorus, at the Turan Palace, just to the left side of me.
02:04And the Russian delegation touched down in Istanbul on Sunday.
02:08And, of course, this is the second round of talks held in just a little over two weeks.
02:13And the Turkish foreign minister gave his welcoming speech, in which he stated and underlined that Turkey expects the meeting between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul to be effective.
02:24And underlined that Turkey actually supports the peace talks and that it's important to establish peace.
02:31And Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov actually underlined earlier that the Russian side will present its version of the memorandum on the conflict resolution to the Ukrainian side.
02:40But once again, underlined that the root causes of the conflict must be eliminated.
02:45And that's what we've been hearing for a long time now, of course.
02:49And during the last talks, I think it's important to recall on the last talks as well.
02:55On May 16th, the two sides, Moscow and Kiev, agreed for the biggest prisoner exchange, 1,000 for 1,000, including not just the military personnel, but the civilians as well.
03:06And the two sides also agreed to present each other with the memorandum on the conflict resolution.
03:12But according to the media, ahead of the talks, Financial Times released a complete text of Kiev's so-called peace memorandum.
03:21And the key points, I'll take you through it, full and unconditional ceasefire, certain confidence-building measures, as well as assurance against another potential war,
03:31as well as guarantees of security and sovereignty for Ukraine.
03:35Moscow, however, as I've just mentioned, Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly underlined that the root causes, of course, of the Ukraine conflict must be eliminated first.
03:45And that NATO membership for Ukraine is absolutely off the table.
03:49And the Kremlin spokesperson also noted that once those key points were published, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov actually underlined that Moscow actually considers it wrong to communicate and share memorandum details via the media.
04:08Of course, we're yet to hear the comments from both of the sides.
04:12I hope and everyone hopes we'll hear them from both of the sides.
04:15But I'm sure we'll hear it from Moscow, of course.
04:18So we'll, of course, keep you updated and bring you all the latest.
04:22And just as the two sides were sitting down, Vladimir Zelensky bragged about Sunday's large-scale Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia, claiming they aim to sway Moscow towards peace.
04:34A group, together with America, has better weapons than Russia.
04:39We also have stronger tactical solutions.
04:41Our operation Spiderweb yesterday proved that Russia must feel what its losses mean.
04:49That is what will push it toward diplomacy.
04:52And when Russia takes losses in this war, it's obvious to everyone that Ukraine is the one holding the line, not just for itself, but for all of Europe.
05:03Well, the operation mentioned by Zelensky targeted multiple airfields across Russia and has been condemned by officials in Moscow.
05:11All terrorist attacks at military airfields in the Ivanova, Rezan and Amur regions were repelled.
05:18In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, as a result of the launch of FPV drones from territory in the immediate vicinity of airfields, several units of aircraft caught fire.
05:29The fires were extinguished.
05:31There were no casualties among military personnel or civilians.
05:35Some of the participants of the terrorist attacks were detained.
05:38Five different Russian regions came under the Ukrainian terrorist attack on Sunday, namely Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanova, Rezan and Amur as well.
05:48Now, the Russian defense ministry said there was a limited impact on two regions only, as no casualties among the military personnel or civilians had been reported.
05:59When several aircraft caught fire in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, which have been all promptly extinguished.
06:08And I believe that this is the first time Ukrainian drones reached as far as Siberia.
06:14But they were not launched from Ukraine, according to online footage and the governor of the Irkutsk region as well.
06:23Apparently, the FPV drones were launched from trucks not far from where the terrorist acts actually took place.
06:31Regular civilians have noticed the drones launching from the trucks and then tried to stop them on their own by throwing stones and otherwise preventing the drones from taking off.
06:45Now, according to the defense ministry, some of the terrorists on the ground have already been detained.
06:51Meanwhile, Zelenskyy was quick to brag about the fact that the terrorist attacks were actually organized by Ukraine.
07:00Take a listen to this.
07:02We have been preparing the operation for more than a year and a half.
07:05The planning, organization and all the details were perfectly prepared.
07:09We can say with confidence that this is an absolutely unique operation.
07:13Right after the terrorist attacks, news surfaced that Ukraine had actually notified the United States about its actions.
07:21However, Washington was quick to refute those claims right away and added that the U.S. did not provide any intelligence to Kiev in this particular regard.
07:33Meanwhile, the Ukrainian militants are constantly using various types of drones against civilian population.
07:40Here in the Donetsk Republic has been, well, a regular occurrence until recently as public transport, emergency services, cars, residential areas and just regular people walking down the street were coming under constant Ukrainian drone attacks.
07:58Also, the Russian air defense forces have been repelling a mass drone attack by Kiev over the last 24 hours as well.
08:08Over 160 Ukrainian UAVs targeted multiple areas on Sunday with a number of casualties reported.
08:18In the Kursk region, for example, a Ukrainian FPV drone struck a civilian car and injured a woman.
08:26The residential homes were also damaged as the result of that assault.
08:31According to the defense ministry, Russia has been intercepting and destroying up to 2,000 Ukrainian drones a week.
08:42Civilians who tried to prevent drones from taking off to attack one of Russia's eastern regions could receive awards for their courage.
08:50That's according to the local governor.
08:51This mobile phone footage shows citizens trying to prevent those UAVs deploying from a truck in the Irkutsk region.
08:59When the drones began appearing, several men climbed onto the roof of the lorry and tried to stop any further launches.
09:05Here's what one of them told the media.
09:07Yes, I am a driver.
09:11I am actually from Belarus.
09:13I saw the explosion.
09:14I saw the smoke.
09:16I saw where the drones were taking off from.
09:18It was terrible.
09:19I helped close them.
09:21All of us who were standing here in the parking lot helped so that they wouldn't take off anywhere else.
09:25What can you do?
09:26We did everything we could until it exploded.
09:29We threw stones so that they wouldn't take off, so that they would be pinned down.
09:33The first thing that came to mind was that we need to act, act faster, because people could have been dying there.
09:41Let's now cross live to Andrei Telizhenko, ex-diplomat and former advisor to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
09:47Many thanks for joining us on the program, Andrei.
09:49So, the second round of talks has just wrapped up, but on the heels of a series of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia over the weekend.
09:57And Zelensky, seemingly pleased with the success of the operation.
10:01Let's talk about the timing of these attacks.
10:04What does it say about the negotiating position of Ukraine and whether they can be trusted to negotiate in good faith?
10:12Again, unfortunately, the Ukrainian side, the Kiev regime, is not where to be trusted at all in this situation.
10:19Every time there's a provocation of peace talks, every time there's an international conference, there's a provocation.
10:26Remember the new security conference, where Zelensky went, and they had a provocation on the Chernobyl nuclear site.
10:34Again, everybody understood that was a provocation.
10:36So, again, this situation, and that happened yesterday, on the Russian territory, those attacks coming from drones within Russian territory,
10:43Ukraine cannot act, cannot destroy, cannot do anything because they don't have the weapons.
10:47The Ukrainian army doesn't have the capability to do anything against Russia or any other even army, because there's an army in the Air Force.
10:54Everything that's given is from outside of Ukraine.
10:57Ukraine does not produce anything that it used to produce during the Soviet times.
11:01So, it only can act in a terrorist way, mantle all these bombs and drones and put them within the Russian territory and then launch them from Russian territory right by the basis of nuclear bases where there are nuclear warheads with those trains.
11:18So, this is, my question is, what would the United States have done, for example, that is right now leading Ukraine or coordinating Ukraine, or any other country that is leading Ukraine, France, Germany,
11:29would have done if that attack would happen on their soil against their nuclear capabilities.
11:35That is the big question, and why there's no reaction from the West.
11:38So, today, Kiev is acknowledging all that situation, that there's no reaction, nothing's happening from outside of Ukraine.
11:43And they're just trying to provoke Russia not to destroy these negotiations.
11:48They want them to continue.
11:50That's a show.
11:50They understand Russia will not back off.
11:52Russia wants peace.
11:53Russia wants to negotiate.
11:55But they want to make a show and put a principle outside of Ukraine to show that they can be financed more because they can bring more damage into Russia.
12:05Because there's forces in Europe today that want to bring more damage to Russia.
12:09And Ukraine needs that, and that's why they're making this huge bloodbath, again, right before peace negotiations, to show that they are capable of continuing this war.
12:19And that is what they want.
12:22And yet, Zelensky is accusing Moscow of doing everything it can to prevent the negotiations from producing real results.
12:28Have you seen any real evidence to support those accusations?
12:31First of all, there was no evidence for the last 10 years of what Russia did in this situation.
12:39I'm not trying to take sides.
12:40I'm just saying I was there on the inside of the Ukraine government.
12:43I saw when the civil war in Donbass, how it started with the support of the outside of Ukraine, the director of CIA, Brennan, under Obama administration.
12:51It was all coordinated from outside.
12:53Russia waiting, waited for eight years, trying to negotiate peace with the civil war in Ukraine, trying to bring peace between two Ukrainian sides.
13:03Today, again, this is continuing.
13:05Russia wants to bring peace, and Ukraine is continuing with its allies from outside to bring war.
13:10Just recently, right before these attacks happened, there was Lindsey Graham on the ground.
13:15The same as Lindsey Graham was on the ground before the first negotiations when they were postponed 24 hours.
13:21And today, again, Lindsey Graham is in Kiev talking, and there's more warfare and more blood spilling outside of Ukraine and on Ukrainian soil.
13:30Because these people are owning Zelensky.
13:33These people are owning Ukraine today.
13:35They want war.
13:36The military industrial conflicts, the warmongers, the neocons, want to continue for Ukraine to fight.
13:42Because they're not losing anything in this, only money, which they're making more on the profits from selling weapons outside of their homeland.
13:50So this is what it's all about.
13:52Money-making, Zelensky sustaining power.
13:54He doesn't want peace.
13:55Only Russia is interested in peace because it's in their national security interest.
13:59On the border of Ukraine, which is borderline with Russia, to have peace, because this is where their land is, and Russia doesn't want war on their soil to continue.
14:08So that's the logical question here.
14:10Well, having said that, what can we expect to come out of the talks today?
14:15They were just an hour long, less than the about two hours we had with the first round of talks.
14:23Can we expect any positive outcomes, do you think?
14:25The only good positive outcomes is the exchange of prisoners, as I see at this moment, is a goodwill of showing everybody that they can move forward.
14:37That is a good step for the people who are going to be exchanged, that's for sure, on both sides.
14:42And I hope that will happen again after these negotiations.
14:46But overall, globally, within the negotiation process, the real peace will and can happen only when the president of the United States and the president of Russia sit down together and have a discussion.
14:58I'm not over the phone, between themselves, for a couple of hours, maybe a couple of days, then this process can lead to something to stop this bloodshed and getting basically Ukraine to stop to continue and provoking this war on the borders of Russia.
15:15So this is what it's all about.
15:17Ukraine, in this situation, does not decide for itself.
15:20Ukraine had a possibility to decide in 2022 and Istanbul won.
15:24Boris Johnson came in and he said no.
15:26Again, yesterday's attacks were acknowledged and supported, I think not by the United States.
15:31Within what information I have, the British intelligence and British satellites gave that information to the Ukrainian side, and that's what the key regime used it.
15:39So the Brits are involved in the situation again.
15:41As in Istanbul 1, Istanbul 2 today can be destroyed by the British intelligence and by the British government, who wants also to continue this war, and who owns Olenski today.
15:52Many thanks for joining us on the program.
15:54Andrei Telizhenko, ex-diplomat and former advisor to the Prosecutor-General of Ukraine.
15:59Thank you for now.
16:00God bless.
16:02We are covering all the developments emerging from today's talks between Russia and Ukraine at the Jiraghan Palace in Istanbul.
16:10And our correspondents are on standby there.
16:13We've got you covered both on air and on our website, rt.com, plus all our social media feeds.
16:20Make sure you stay with us for all the latest.
16:21And while the Russia-Ukraine talks are endorsed by Turkey and the US, some other powers apparently want to keep the war going.
16:38Britain's Prime Minister is among them as he announced a massive boost to the UK's military budget, allegedly in the name of peace.
16:47First, we are moving to warfighting readiness as the central purpose of our armed forces.
16:56When we are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces, the most effective way to deter them is to be ready.
17:05And frankly, to show them that we're ready to deliver peace through strength.
17:13As Ukraine and Russia shuffled back to the negotiating table for talks backed by the Trump administration, you'd think that peace was just about the worst possible outcome based on how some Western allies have been talking.
17:24It sounds like they'd rather settle things with a bar fight out behind a Waffle House.
17:29A ceasefire would really ruin things for countries hoping to reboot their tanking and mismanaged economies into sexy new wartime ones.
17:37Way easier to mug the average citizen for cash when you've got a scary bedtime story about Putin setting up camp on their begonias.
17:45Enter the UK with its new strategic defence review out today, which British Defence Secretary John Healy has labelled a, quote, message to Moscow.
17:56Because, yeah, this is definitely not about tossing taxpayer cash at the military industrial complex.
18:02No, it's about keeping Putin from pitching a tent in Birmingham.
18:07And they're rushing this whole military build-up announcement out before peace has any chance of ruining the party.
18:13Big new investments, six billion pounds over the next five years in factories like this, which allow us not just to produce the munitions that equip our forces for the future,
18:25but to create the jobs in every part of the UK.
18:27And this is a message to Moscow as well.
18:30This is Britain standing behind making our armed forces stronger, but making our industrial base stronger.
18:36And this is part of our readiness to fight, if required, but the strength in which to deter those fights in the future.
18:47Right. So this is all about rebuilding the industrial base.
18:51The UK's deindustrialisation has been so thorough that its car industry just post its worst production number since 1952.
18:58And, well, its energy-intensive sectors are curling up in a fetal position after 35 years of decline, thanks to sky-high energy prices.
19:08So this is basically just industrial welfare to save their own economy, but with scarier branding.
19:16Everything's going just great, obviously.
19:18You can totally trust these guys because they sound super sane and level-headed, this guy especially.
19:23You can't deter a nuclear-armed country without nuclear capability, and you can't deter battlefield nuclear weapons with strategic nuclear weapons.
19:37It simply doesn't add up.
19:38So I think that part of that declaration should have been for Britain to undertake, to develop battlefield nuclear weapons.
19:46Now, I know how expensive that is, which could have been a deterrent against Russia and or to help Ukraine develop its own nuclear weapons capability, having surrendered it with supposed guarantees from the West.
20:00And now the Brits want to make newts for Ukraine, the same Ukraine that, according to the Germans, managed to ruin the German tanks they were gifted and then somehow double-ruin them by trying to fix them.
20:10The same folks who keep nose-diving their precious few F-16s, yeah, sure, let's toss nukes into that mix.
20:18Sounds like a fantastic plan, says one very chill British colonel.
20:23Makes you wonder what kind of mystery mushrooms were on the hors d'oeuvre table at that event.
20:29I wish that I was looming over the Kremlin right now and being able to reach down out of the sky and pluck Mr. Putin out and drop him into the river or something.
20:39Seriously, what's stopping you, man?
20:42Go play Superman over the Kremlin.
20:44Beat standing next to your buddy, Captain Bad Idea.
20:47Oops, sorry, Colonel Bad Idea, who's advocating for nuclear proliferation, starting with Ukraine.
20:55Of course, this isn't the first time the Brits have thrown a spanner in the peace process.
20:59Back in 2022, Boris Johnson, when he was prime minister, reportedly told Ukraine not to take a peace deal in the early days of the war.
21:08The EU is also pivoting to a war economy funded by taxpayers to the tune of 800 billion euros.
21:16Meanwhile, French bakeries can't afford to bake baguettes with the chronically high price of energy.
21:22Maybe they should just switch to making subsidized bullets instead.
21:26Surprisingly, someone in Germany has actually started hitting the brakes on all this belligerent rhetoric.
21:32From my point of view, it was clear from the very beginning that this war will most likely end at the negotiating table.
21:38Because one thing is already true, that a complete defeat in the sense of a capitulation of the nuclear-armed Russia could not be expected.
21:46In this respect, we have now made ourselves a little more honest.
21:50At the same time, Ukraine is successfully defending itself against Russia.
21:54Thus, there is every chance for Ukraine to emerge strongly from a strong negotiating position.
22:00It is important for us that Ukraine makes this decision and that it is not taken over its heads by others.
22:05So, that dose of real politic and diplomacy coming from the German foreign minister is really a stark contrast to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's recent talk of
22:16why not let Ukraine hit literally anything in Russia with Western weapons, zero range limits.
22:23He had to walk that one back, though.
22:25Probably taking you to Istanbul now, where Russia's chief negotiator is delivering remarks to the press
22:30after the second round of direct talks between Moscow and Kiev.
22:34Let's listen in live.
22:38To the Turkish side, it contains three parts.
22:42First, how to achieve a true long-term settlement.
22:46And the second part is what steps can be made for a whole ceasefire to be possible.
22:58And the second part allows for variants.
23:03Different paths can be taken.
23:06Memorandum is quite detailed.
23:12And the Ukrainian side decided to review it.
23:16After they review it, they will respond.
23:19And in addition to that, we have resolved several practical issues.
23:28First, we are unilaterally
23:32transfer 6,000 frozen bodies of Ukrainian soldiers,
23:42which are on storage with us.
23:44We have conducted all possible identification procedures.
23:51And we have organized special transport.
23:58And those bodies will be transferred to the Ukrainian side next week
24:02so that they can give them a decent burial.
24:04I don't know if there are any bodies that they want to give to us.
24:14We would accept them.
24:15But that is yet unknown.
24:18We have also agreed on the most large scale
24:22a prisoner exchange.
24:29Those who are gravely wounded
24:32or gravely ill.
24:38That will be a humanitarian gesture on our side.
24:43A similar one,
24:45a similar all-for-all formula
24:46will be used to exchange young soldiers
24:48for a given age.
25:02And it will be at least 1,000 from each side.
25:06And it could be more.
25:08These numbers are now being coordinated.
25:10We have also agreed
25:14to establish a permanent medical commission
25:18to provide conclusions
25:22to make exchange lists
25:29for gravely wounded soldiers.
25:34Those exchanges will be carried out
25:37on a working basis
25:38and will not require our approval.
25:47And the last proposal that we have made
25:49is,
25:56as the Ukrainian side often speaks about
25:59the general need for a ceasefire,
26:02we proposed a specific ceasefire
26:06for two or three days
26:08on certain parts
26:11of the front.
26:13And it will now be
26:14worked out by our
26:17specialists.
26:22And this will include
26:23the cessation of drone operations
26:28and other things
26:29so that the bodies can be collected
26:31by commanders.
26:33It is a hot time of the year
26:36and there is a danger
26:39of epidemics
26:40that we want to create
26:42a possibility,
26:44especially since the Russian army
26:46is advancing
26:47and there are more Ukrainian soldiers
26:51in the grey zone.
26:52We want to create conditions
26:53for the bodies to be collected
26:54and transferred
26:57to the other side
26:58for a desincretion burial.
27:03But this was the proposal
27:04and the Ukrainian military
27:06promised to review them.
27:12A bit of a short time frame.
27:14Thank you, colleagues.
27:15I want to say that this topic
27:36was indeed discussed.
27:42So, what did we hear recently?
27:51At the United Nations,
27:54at other platforms,
27:56we heard about 1.5 million
27:58Ukrainian children being abducted.
28:01Then we heard about
28:02200,000 Ukrainian children.
28:05Now the official figure is
28:0620,000 children.
28:08And we tried to get
28:15any documentary evidence,
28:20any corroboration statements
28:21from parents,
28:23but there was nothing,
28:24no lists.
28:29And we have a permanently operating
28:33children's ombudsman.
28:38And children who have found
28:39themselves in a difficult situation
28:40in the battle zone,
28:43they're evacuated.
28:45And if
28:46their families are found,
28:49the children are reunited
28:50with their families.
28:52They're given back
28:53to those families.
28:54So, what are the actual numbers?
28:58We finally
28:58received
28:59this whole list.
29:01As you see,
29:03it's not 1.5 million
29:04and not 20,000,
29:07339 names.
29:13And on every
29:14child in this list,
29:17we will
29:18carry out
29:20the master examinations.
29:21We are currently
29:25reviewing
29:25all the applications
29:27and our ombudsman
29:29has returned
29:30101
29:33child.
29:36On the Ukrainian side
29:37returned
29:3822 children.
29:40As it also happens
29:41that our children
29:42can be
29:43lost
29:44in a
29:45battle zone
29:46and after
29:47their families
29:48are located
29:49or after
29:50their legal
29:50representatives,
29:53their relatives
29:53are located,
29:57the children
29:57are given back
29:58to their families.
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