Russia-Ukraine Talks Wrap Up In Under 2-Hours: ‘Nothing Meaningful To End War’

The Friday meeting between Ukrainian and Russian officials, the first direct engagement of its kind in some three years, has ended, according to Turkey’s foreign ministry, and lasted a little under two hours.

Each side will in the aftermath convey to the press its version of things, and Ukraine has been right out the gate telling CNN that there was nothing meaningful to come out of these first talks.

A Ukrainian source said the Russia delegation “did not have a mandate to make important decisions” and that “they are not ready to decide anything meaningful to end the war.”

Many international headlines Thursday described the team of junior officials sent by the Kremlin as an ‘insult’ to the peace process; however, it’s also the case that no matter who President Putin sends, he is the one who will ultimately make the decisions.

Wall Street Journal has described that “The talks, in the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, came about as the result of President Trump’s pressure, so far mostly applied on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to find an end to the war.”

But, “Just as the negotiations started, Russia struck near the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a salvo of ballistic missiles, according to local officials.”

And Reuters agrees in its assessment that there are “no apparent sign of progress so far in narrowing the gap between the sides, and a Ukrainian source called Moscow’s demands ‘non-starters’.

Neither side has so far offered no major concessions, and issues like permanent control over Crimea and the four eastern territories remain sticking points for Moscow. 

During the Istanbul meeting, according to WSJ’s foreign correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov:

Russia demanded in Istanbul that Ukraine withdraw its troops from four regions — areas that Moscow has been trying to conquer but failed since 2022 — as a precondition for ceasefire. That’s an area twice the size of the country of Lebanon and home to more than a million Ukrainians. Not going to happen.

Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson were annexed in 2022, declared part of the Russian Federation, but Moscow forces still don’t have 100% control over them.

The talks in Istanbul lasted fewer than 2 hours and led nowhere, it looks. Russia demanded that Ukraine surrender, Ukraine refused. https://t.co/WR5A5jcI4e

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) May 16, 2025

And it doesn’t look like there was any progress on achieving a Trump and Zelensky-backed 30-day ceasefire. Moscow sees this as a tactic for Ukraine forces to simply rearm and regroup, at a moment they are in dire need of more manpower and artillery. 

President Zelensky has meanwhile been making clear that Ukraine will not surrender its territory as “this is Ukraine’s land” – and he isn’t so much as ready to even offer Crimea. Zelensky and European leaders are reportedly holding a phone call with US President Trump in the wake of the Istanbul meeting.

They will likely try to convince the US leader that attempts to negotiate an end to the war with Putin are futile. This seems to have been Zelensky’s aim all along: getting Washington and Trump back on his side, and securing the unending flow of weapons, cash, and intelligence.