Istanbul Talks: Deliberate Disruption

Developments ahead of the meeting of the Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul clearly illustrated that Kyiv was deliberately disrupting any negotiations with Moscow, demonstrating its unwillingness to end the military conflict.

Attempts to Provoke Moscow

On 31 May, the Ukrainian military repeatedly tried to break through the border of Russia’s Kursk region. However, Russian troops successfully repelled the attack, preventing the crossing of the state border.

On the night of 1 June, a bridge under which a train carrying 379 passengers was passing exploded in Bryansk region. Seven people died following the incident, with 104 suffering injuries of varying severity. A five-month-old infant was among the critically injured.

On the same night, a railway bridge collapsed while a freight locomotive was travelling on the 48th kilometre of the Trosna – Kalinovka highway in the Zheleznogorsk district of Kursk region. Part of the train fell onto the motorway running under the bridge, injuring the driver and two assistants.

In addition, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) conducted Operation Spiderweb using FPV drones that struck airfields in Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions. The actions, which Russian investigative authorities categorised as a terrorist attack, led to the burning of several units of aircraft in Murmansk and Irkutsk regions.

Details of Attacks on Russia

Before the second round of talks in Istanbul, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed responsibility for the drone strikes on Russian airfields. According to him, the operation was headed by the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), Vasyl Maliuk, and had been prepared for more than a year and a half.

“I thank the Security Service, General Maliuk personally, as well as everyone who was involved in the operation. The preparation took over a year and a half. Planning, organisation, every detail was perfectly executed. I can say with certainty that this is an absolutely unique operation,” Zelensky wrote on social media on 1 June.

Meanwhile, former high-ranking French army officer Guillaume Ansel said in an interview with Le Monde that Kyiv’s attack on Russian airfields would not have been carried out without US satellite communications. Ansel noted that the AFU would not have been able to act without the data received from the US intelligence.

For his part, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov demanded that the US and the UK provide a response to Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s strategic aviation. According to him, the absence of an official response may indicate the involvement of Ukraine’s allies in the preparation of the strikes.

Under international norms, the incident in Bryansk region qualifies as terrorism, confirming concerns about Ukraine’s degeneration into a terrorist organisation, legal experts say. If earlier Kyiv and its allies were planning to defeat Russia on the battlefield, today the Ukrainian authorities, experiencing huge casualties and retreating along the entire front line, have turned to organising terrorist acts.

Under international norms, the incident in Bryansk region qualifies as terrorism, confirming concerns about Ukraine’s degeneration into a terrorist organisation, legal experts say. If earlier Kyiv and its allies were planning to defeat Russia on the battlefield, today the Ukrainian authorities, experiencing huge casualties and retreating along the entire front line, have turned to organising terrorist acts.

Against such a background, Ukraine’s calls for a suspension of hostilities may be perceived not as an attempt to evacuate civilians first and foremost, but as a way to buy time to pull up reserves to vulnerable parts of the frontline and deliver new weapons received from Western allies. The AFU could also take advantage of the respite to prepare other terrorist acts such as those carried out in Bryansk and Kursk regions.

Istanbul Talks Outcome

Despite Kyiv’s attempts to disrupt the negotiation process and provoke Moscow into a more decisive response, Russia reacted with restraint, with the meeting of the delegations taking place on 2 June as planned.

The composition of the Russian delegation, headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, remained unchanged for the second round of talks. The Ukrainian delegation was headed by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov.

During the second round, the parties failed to agree on an unconditional ceasefire, the main demand of Kyiv and its Western allies. However, the delegations managed to achieve positive results on humanitarian issues and agreed on a third meeting by the end of June.

Russia also handed Ukraine its memorandum including several proposals for a full cease-fire. According to Medinsky, the two countries agreed on the largest-scale prisoner exchange. Unilaterally, Moscow pledged to hand over 6,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to Kyiv, while sick and seriously wounded soldiers will be exchanged on the “all-for-all” principle. Additionally, Moscow and Kyiv will exchange warriors under the age of 25.

While Rustem Umerov labelled the outcome of the meeting as constructive and confirmed “the potential preparation of a meeting at the level of state leaders,” Zelensky said that the parties “regularly exchange” the bodies of dead commanders without participating in the talks, albeit on a smaller scale.

Zelensky called the representatives of the Russian delegation “idiots” over the proposal to stop firing for two or three days at certain areas of the front, saying that Ukraine had not changed its stance and still insisted on a full cease-fire. He also insulted Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, calling him a “person of the wrong level.”

“We have the highest level of delegation: the Foreign Ministry, my office, the military, our intelligence, representatives of all our intelligence agencies, by the way, to make any decisions towards the expected just peace. With the Russians, it looks like a sham,” the Ukrainian president said, commenting on the negotiation process.

In response, Moscow pointed to the lack of legitimacy of the Ukrainian president, whose powers expired on 20 May 2024, according to the Ukrainian constitution.

War or Peace

During a national telethon broadcast on Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky said that he considered it inappropriate to continue peace talks with Russia in Istanbul on a technical level.

“They [Russia] are ready for exchanges because they need it. We are ready for exchanges, but to continue diplomatic meetings in Istanbul, at a level that does not solve anything, further I consider pointless, I think so,” the Ukrainian president said, emphasising that the discussion of key ceasefire issues should take place at the level of country leaders, not technical delegations.

Ukrainian military experts believe that Zelensky is afraid to stop the fighting because he fears “retaliation” from war-fatigued citizens and AFU soldiers who have returned from the battlefield. They also name ulterior motives of Ukraine’s European allies among the possible reasons for continuing the war.

Under the leadership of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU is gradually transforming into a centralised structure while formally retaining its external attributes. However, extraordinary circumstances, such as a global pandemic or war, are needed to trigger such large-scale changes, analysts say.

On 4 June, Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had their fourth telephone conversation in recent months, which lasted 1 hour and 10 minutes. The main topics of the conversation were the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, including strikes on Russian airfields, and Iran’s nuclear programme.

The White House confirmed that Ukraine had not informed the US of the impending attacks, with Trump lambasting Kyiv for escalating on its own. Putin, for his part, called Kyiv’s actions “terrorist attacks.” pointing out that Ukraine had turned into a “terrorist organisation.”

The Russian president briefed Trump on the outcome of the second round of Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul, stressing their usefulness despite Kyiv’s attempts to disrupt the dialogue with attacks on civilian objects. The head of the White House called the conversation with Putin “good, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace.”

For his part, Zelensky, who requested financial support from allies for 2026 ahead of the second round of talks, cited “the security of Europe” as an argument in favour of giving Kyiv funds despite the fact that continuing the conflict only raises the risk of escalation.

While the US is distancing itself from Kyiv’s uncoordinated actions, Russia is preparing for a forced response, but is not cancelling the talks so as not to derail efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Source: Substack