Piece talks! Kyiv & Moscow end negotiations in an hour

ISTANBUL: Russia and Ukraine said they had agreed at peace talks on Monday to exchange more prisoners of war and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers.

The warring sides met for barely an hour in the Turkish city of Istanbul, for only the second such round of negotiations since March 2022.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described it as a great meeting and said he hoped to bring together Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a meeting in Turkey with US President Donald Trump.

But there was no breakthrough on a proposed ceasefire that Ukraine, its European allies and Washington have all urged Russia to accept.

Moscow says it seeks a long-term settlement, not a pause in the war; Kyiv says Putin is not interested in peace.

Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said Russian negotiators had handed their Ukrainian counterparts a detailed memorandum outlining Moscow's terms for a full ceasefire.

Medinsky, who heads the Russian team, said Moscow had also suggested a "specific ceasefire of two to three days in certain sections of the front" so that the bodies of dead soldiers could be collected. Each side said it would hand over the bodies of 6,000 dead soldiers to the other.

In addition, they said they would conduct a further big swap of prisoners of war, after 1,000 captives on each side were traded following a first round of talks in Istanbul on May 15.