Russia ‘Demands Kyiv Pull Back Troops’ Before Ceasefire

Date: 17 May 2025 - 22:26

News ID: ۱۳۹۶۵۳

ISTANBUL (Dispatches) –
Russian negotiators at peace talks in Istanbul demanded Ukraine pull its troops out of all the Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire, a senior Ukrainian official familiar with the talks told Reuters.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the terms that Russia had put forward at Friday’s meeting in Turkey - the first time the warring sides had held face-to-face talks since March 2022, weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The talks lasted only one hour and 40 minutes, and yielded an agreement to trade 1,000 prisoners of war on each side. The two countries have not specified when that will happen.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Saturday for stronger sanctions on Moscow after a Russian drone killed nine bus passengers in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, said it struck a military target in Sumy. Its defense ministry said Russian troops had captured another settlement in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine and Western governments, including the U.S., have demanded that Russia agree to an immediate, unconditional ceasefire lasting at least 30 days.
But the Ukrainian source said Moscow’s negotiators had demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, with a ceasefire to take place only after that.
The source said that and other demands went beyond the terms of a draft peace deal that the United States proposed last month after consultations with Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the Ukrainian account, saying talks should be conducted “absolutely behind closed doors”.
He said the next steps would be to carry out the prisoner exchange and conduct further work between the two sides. Peskov said it was possible that President Vladimir Putin could meet Zelenskiy, but only if “certain agreements” were reached, which he did not specify.
Zelenskiy had challenged Putin earlier in the week to meet him in person, an offer the Russian leader ignored.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his country, after hosting the talks, was determined to continue its mediation role.
After Friday’s meeting, Ukraine began rallying support from its allies to take tougher action against Moscow.
However, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he was annoyed by U.S. taxpayers’ money being “pissed away” by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The money is the money. What bothered me – I hated to see the way it was, you know – excuse me – pissed away by Zelensky,” Trump said in an interview aired on Friday by Fox News.
“Congress is very upset about it. You know, they’re saying, where is all this money going?” Trump added.
The U.S., which under the Biden administration provided some $128 billion to Ukraine since 2022 including $66.5 billion in military assistance, is preparing for its first arms sales to Ukraine under Trump.