Here is a summary of what else Zelenskyy said during his address in Vilnius after a summit in the Lithuanian capital: He said sanctions against Russia are “necessary” and to “seriously limit” Russia’s oil trade and Moscow’s use of tankers. “Without pressure Putin will just keep playing games with everyone who wants this war to end,” the Ukrainian leader said. Zelenskyy says he expects more prisoners of war to be freed. “The key to lasting peace is clear: the aggressor must not receive any reward for war. Putin must get nothing that would justify his aggression. Any reward would only show him that war pays off.” If Putin decides who can and cannot join Nato, then Russia’s “appetite for war” will only grow, Zelenskyy said, adding that the goal should be to completely end “Russia’s hunger for aggression”. We are seeing reports from the newswires that the talks between Russia and Ukraine have concluded barely an hour after they began. We were expecting them to continue for much longer. The two sides had been expected to discuss their ideas for what a full ceasefire and a longer term path to peace should look like amid pressure from Donald Trump, who has said the US could abandon its role as a mediator if there is no progress. While so-called peace talks have been underway in Turkey, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been speaking in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius following a summit. He has said more sanctions on Moscow could deter further Russian aggression and bring the two sides closer to peace. Zelenksyy said there must be “a new level of pressure, new sanctions - and not just from Europe” should today’s talks in Istanbul fail. “Without pressure, Putin will just keep playing games,” the Ukrainian president said, adding that Ukraine’s allies must “act in unity”. He calls for joint sanctions “at the G7 level,” including from Washington. The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, has said Ukrainian delegates at the talks in Istanbul have given Russian negotiators a list of children Kyiv wants Moscow to return to Ukraine. EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen met with US Republican senator Lindsey Graham to discuss EU-US coordination on sanctions on Russia, the European commission has said in a press release. Here is some of the readout: The president made the objective clear: we need a real ceasefire, we need Russia at the negotiating table, and we need to end this war. Pressure works, as the Kremlin understands nothing else. This is why the President welcomed that Senator Graham committed to ramping up pressure on Russia and moving ahead with the bill in Senate next week. The EU is preparing its 18th package of hard-biting sanctions, targeting Russia’s energy revenues, including Nord Stream infrastructure, Russia’s banking sector and lowering the crude oil price cap. These steps, taken together with US measures, would sharply increase the joint impact of our sanctions, said President von der Leyen. Graham is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill to impose more sanctions on Russia. Lawmakers – from both the Republican party and the Democrats – are expected to shortly move forward with a vote on the bill this week. Here are some more quotes from Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan, who is chairing the talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul. He made the comments just before the negotiations got under way: At today’s meeting, we will continue to evaluate the conditions and perspectives of the two countries regarding the ceasefire, and aim to take the process of exchanging prisoners of war one step further with humanitarian considerations… We also plan to address the necessary preparations for the leaders’ meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. “(US President Donald) Trump’s determination to establish peace has opened a new window of opportunity,” Fidan added. Ruth Michaelson is reporting from Istanbul Ukrainian defence officials say that talks have finally begun, almost two hours after they were scheduled to start. Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, who visited Kyiv and Moscow in preparation for today’s talks, kicked off the negotiations by saying “we believe peace is within reach”. “In today’s meeting we aim to continue the assessment of both sides’ conditions for a ceasefire, with the aim of taking further steps,” he said. Turkish state television showed Ukrainian negotiators in military fatigues sitting opposite their dark-suited Russian counterparts as he spoke. The Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had exchanged memos outlining their respective visions for a ceasefire, he said adding: “This shows their will to exchange views today.” Turkish officials are hoping to foster trust between the negotiating teams, despite Ukrainian concerns that Moscow has now repeatedly sent a team composed of deputy ministers and aides with little negotiating power, intended to act as a messenger service for Russian president Vladimir Putin. Fidan hailed US president Donald Trump’s faith in the talks despite Trump’s previous statements that only a meeting between him and Putin is likely to bring real change. The foreign minister was flanked by intelligence chief İbrahim Kalin, who has previously described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “unlawful,” adding that Russia’s attempts to annex Ukrainian territory as “illegal.” Washington has indicated in recent weeks that it is seeking a deal that could see both Russia and Ukraine “freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today,” according to vice-president JD Vance. This has come with little clarity for what this could mean for the status of the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Outside the plush carpeted negotiation rooms of the Çırağan palace, tankers cruising along the Bosphorus are a reminder of the wider implications of the war. As negotiators spoke, several container ships and another carrying oil sailed along the Bosphorus, bound for Russian territory. Ukraine has demanded that western nations step up sanctions on Russia, including targeting its oil industry, should Moscow continue to prove reluctant to engage in negotiations. Fidan said Turkey is seeking “a sustainable peace,” adding: “These talks will decide our common fate. The world’s eyes are on negotiations here.” Turkey’s government has issued handout photos from Istanbul of the Russian and Ukrainian delegations that are meeting now for direct talks. Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister of Turkey, has said that he is glad that a second round of direct talks has started between Ukrain and Russia. The talks are being hosted in Istanbul. Fidan said the aim is to discuss the ceasefire requirements of both sides. He added that it was important that the US was contributing to the peace process, and said he was sure the talks would bring concrete results. More details soon … Reuters has a quick snap that a Ukrainian ministry of defence official has told the news agency that the talks in Istanbul are beginning. Nordic, Baltic and central European Nato members are committed to Ukrainian membership of the military alliance, the leaders of Poland, Romania and Lithuania said in a joint statement after a summit of the B9 and Nordic countries on Monday, Reuters reports. Reporters from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency have done some interesting analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which tracks battlefield developments in the conflict. Here is what AFP’s analysis found: The Russian army took 507 square kilometres in May 2025, against 379 square kilometres in April and 240 square kilometres in March. In May 2025, the Russian advance was focused again on the eastern Donetsk region, which accounted for nearly 400 square kilometres. Ukrainian troops did not recapture any territory in May. Over the past 12 months Russian troops have advanced in Ukraine, which has not managed to retake lost territory. From June 2024 to May 2025 Russia gained a total of 5,107 square kilometres (less than one percent of Ukrainian territory before the war), while Ukrainian forces only regained 85 square kilometres. At the end of May, Russia controlled either wholly or partially nearly 19 percent of Ukrainian territory before the war, including Crimea and THE Donbas. German chancellor Friedrich Merz will push for a “fair ceasefire” in Ukraine during his first in-person meeting with Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday, according to a German government spokesperson. Merz, who was confirmed as chancellor after a shaky start last month, has promised to put staunch support of Ukraine at the heart of his government amid persistent concerns over US security commitments to Europe. “The government’s objectives are clear and the chancellor will do everything in his power to lobby the US president for a fair ceasefire, including with the threat of sanctions,” the German spokesperson told reporters in Berlin on Monday. Merz is aware of a push for tougher sanctions against Russia by US senator Lindsey Graham but would not interfere in US domestic politics, the spokesperson added. For context: Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, has said the legislation, which had 82 cosponsors, would impose “bone-breaking sanctions” on Russia and its customers. To become law, the measure must pass the Senate and House of Representatives and be signed by Trump, who has recently expressed anger towards Vladimir Putin over Russia’s heavy missile and drone attacks on Ukraine during ceasefire negotiations. Ruth Michaelson is reporting from Istanbul and will be providing updates on the talks. Here is some colour from outside Istanbul’s Ciragan Palace: A fleet of black sedans arrived outside the Çırağan Palace in Istanbul, signalling the arrival of some of the negotiations teams. A team of diplomats in suits emerged from the Russian delegation, their Ukrainian counterparts are expected to arrive wearing military fatigues. Given the difficulties of understanding the finer points of events inside the palace from the media pen in its grounds, Russia’s Radio Mayak took to sharing video of a Turkish diplomat freshening up with a spritz of perfume next to the boot of his car, before entering the palace. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that deputy foreign minister Sergiy Kyslytsya “met with representatives of Ukraine’s European partners, Germany, Italy, and the UK,” prior to the talks expected to begin soon. There are more reports of Russian attacks hitting Ukraine (see post at 08.49 for more examples). Two ballistic missiles struck a residential neighborhood in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv this morning, including one that hit near a school, the city’s mayor said. One missile landed near an apartment building, while the second struck a road near the school, according to Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov. Ukrainian officials in Istanbul have met with representatives from Germany, Italy and the UK ahead of talks later today with Russian delegates, Kyiv’s foreign ministry spokesperson said. The spokesperson said: The sides coordinated positions ahead of today’s meeting between Ukrainian and Russian delegations. Members of the Ukrainian delegation reiterated Ukraine’s commitment to peace efforts. The talks, scheduled to start around 13:00 local time (11:00 BST), will be chaired by Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan. Officials from Kyiv and Moscow are expected to exchange plans on how they want the war to end. When Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, he demanded that Ukraine renounce joining Nato, sharply cut its army, and “protect” Russian language and culture to keep the country in Moscow’s orbit. He since has also demanded that Kyiv withdraw its forces from the four regions Moscow illegally annexed in September 2022 but never fully occupied — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected Russia’s demands for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from these regions. The Ukrainian leader wants “security guarantees” for Ukraine to stop Russia invading again. This would ideally be from the US but the Trump administration, which sees the conflict as something outside of its national interest and a huge drain on resources, has not given any firm security guarantees to Ukraine. Instead, Kyiv is pushing for some other form of western military commitment that would deter Moscow. Britain and France are leading discussions about a possible European troop deployment to enforce any ceasefire. Moscow, however, has said it would not accept troops from Nato countries being deployed to Ukraine in any capacity. It is therefore difficult to see a breakthrough in the negotiations happening anytime soon, as Putin has rejected Ukrainian and western calls for an immediate ceasefire. Ruth Michaelson is a Guardian journalist based in Istanbul Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are due to meet early this afternoon local time here in Istanbul, with talks today taking place in the aftermath of a major Ukrainian drone attack on Russian military bombers in Siberia yesterday. The attack hit 40 warplanes over 2500 miles from Ukraine and caused an estimated £5.2bn in damage, according to Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency. Heorhii Tykhyi, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, says their delegation, led by defence minister Rustem Umerov, has arrived in Istanbul ready for talks expected in the early afternoon. Much to Ukraine’s displeasure during the previous round of talks here two and a half weeks ago, Moscow has again dispatched a negotiating team led by Vladimir Medinsky, an ideologue, aide to Vladimir Putin and former culture minister. Those talks produced the largest prisoner swap of the war so far, but little else. Negotiations this time will be held at the Çırağan palace, another grand Ottoman palace on the shores of the Bosphorus, now in use as a five-star hotel. The opulent location seems unlikely to help the expected outcome of today’s talks. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “doing everything it can to ensure the next possible meeting is fruitless”. Ukraine has demanded Russia supply a memo prior to the meeting, outlining Moscow’s vision for an end to the war. Umerov posted on X last week to say that the Ukrainian side had drafted their version of this memo, and handed it over to the Russian delegation. The Russian side, however, “finally informed us they had finished drafting their “memorandum.” However, they continue to delay the delivery of the document,” he said. In a social media post yesterday, Zelenskyy outlined Ukraine’s position ahead of the talks today. “First –- a full and unconditional ceasefire. Second –- the release of prisoners. Third -– the return of abducted children,” he said, reiterating a call for a discussion of a direct meeting between the Ukrainian president and Vladimir Putin. “The key issues can only be resolved by the leaders,” he said. The Kremlin has said such a meeting is only possible after the negotiations come to wider “agreements”. Zelenskyy told reporters last week that he is prepared for a meeting with US president Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin while urging further sanctions on Russia for Moscow’s reluctance to engage in talks. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he wants to work with Karol Nawrocki, who has just narrowly won Poland’s presidential election with 50.89% of the votes. In a post on X, Zelenskyy wrote: Poland, which preserves the strength of its national spirit and its faith in justice, has been and remains a pillar of regional and European security, and a strong voice defending freedom and dignity for every nation. By reinforcing one another on our continent, we give greater strength to Europe in global competition and bring the achievement of real and lasting peace closer. I look forward to continued fruitful cooperation with Poland and with president Nawrocki personally. Nawrocki, a right-wing a historian and former museum director, backs Poland continuing its staunch support for Kyiv, but has said he does not want to see Ukraine joining Nato and the EU during the war with Russia. You can read more about Nawrocki’s dramatic victory in our Europe live blog. Ukraine and Russia both launched large-scale drone barrages overnight. The Russian defence ministry said its air defence units had “intercepted and destroyed” 162 Ukrainian drones. The majority were downed over regions bordering Ukraine, with 57 intercepted over the Kursk region and 31 over the Belgorod region, it said. Ukraine said Russia had attacked its territory with 80 drones overnight and four missiles. It said the projectiles managed to strike 12 targets. Russia has also been launching attacks ahead of the second round of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Turkey today. Russian shelling and air attacks killed five people outside the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, while a drone attack on the northeast region of Sumy injured at least six people early on Monday, including two children, regional officials said. Ivan Fedorov, the governor of Zaporizhzhia, said three women were killed by Russian shelling targeting the village of Ternuvate, east of Zaporizhzhia yesterday evening. A man died in a nearby district in a Russian strike by a guided aerial bomb, Fedorov added. One person was killed in Russian attacks on Kostyantynivka, a town in the eastern industrial region of Donetsk, on Sunday, governor Vadym Filashkin wrote in a Telegram post earlier today. In the Kherson region, three people were killed and at least 19 others were injured, including two children, governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported this morning in one of his regular updates on Telegram. Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s centre for countering disinformation, has said in a Telegram post that Ukraine destroyed at least 13 planes during the drone attack on Russian airbases yesterday, adding that other military planes were damaged. As we reported in the opening post, Ukraine claimed to have hit struck more than 40 warplanes thousands of miles from its own territory, in what was one of the most audacious Ukrainian special operations since the outbreak of the war and a significant breach of Russia’s national defences. Among the more than 40 aircraft reportedly hit were Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukrainian cities. A Ukrainian delegation has arrived in Istanbul for talks with Russian officials with a meeting planned for Monday afternoon, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said. The two sides are set to hold their second round of direct peace talks since 2022, but are still far apart on how to end the war amid an increase in fighting. After days of uncertainty over whether Ukraine would even attend, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said defence minister Rustem Umerov would meet Russian officials. The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war – but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting. The two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, according to US envoy Keith Kellogg, though it is clear that after three years of Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart. Russia’s lead negotiator, presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, was quoted by Tass news agency as saying the Russian side had received a memorandum from Ukraine on a settlement. Zelenskyy had complained for days that Russia had failed to provide a memorandum with its proposals. In other news: Ukraine said on Sunday it had destroyed Russian bombers worth billions of dollars as far away as Siberia, in its longest-range assault of the war. In a spectacular claim, Ukraine said it had damaged $7bn worth of Russian aircraft parked at four airbases thousands of kilometres (miles) away, with unverified video footage showing aircraft engulfed in flames and black smoke. A source in the Ukrainian security services (SBU) said the strikes hit 41 planes that were used to “bomb Ukrainian villages”. Several Russian and Ukrainian media outlets reported that Ukraine had carried out the operation by launching drones from lorries parked near military airfields deep inside Russia. Ukrainian officials told the media that the operation – codename “Spiderweb” – had been in preparation for more than 18 months. Zelenskyy praised the attacks as a “brilliant operation” that was “aimed exclusively at military targets” and caused “truly significant losses” for Russia. Those who assisted in the operation had been withdrawn from Russia on the eve of the attacks and were safe, he said. Russia has said several “participants” have been arrested. Russian investigators on Sunday said they believed “explosions” had caused two bridges in the border regions of Kursk and Bryansk to collapse overnight, derailing trains, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens. The incidents were being treated as terrorism. In Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, a road bridge collapsed onto a railway line late on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing at least seven people. A rail bridge in neighbouring Kursk also collapsed overnight, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver, officials said. Kursk also borders Ukraine. Separately, a railway track on the Unecha-Zhecha section in Russia’s Bryansk region was damaged without casualties, the national operator, Russian Railways, said. The commander of Ukraine’s land forces, one of the most senior positions in the country’s military, announced on Sunday that he was tendering his resignation, saying he felt “responsibility” for the deaths of at least 12 soldiers killed in a Russian strike on a training ground earlier that day. Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi has been in charge of Ukraine’s vast wartime land army since November last year. “This is a conscious step dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy at the 239th training ground, which resulted in the deaths of our soldiers,” Drapatyi wrote on Facebook. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, said he would summon senior commanders, including top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, to consider the circumstances of the strike. “This is not the first strike of its kind when Ukraine has lost personnel. I have called a meeting … to deal with this,” he said. “We need all our fighting men at the front to defend Ukraine.” Russia’s military issued a statement saying its forces had launched a missile on a Ukrainian military “tent camp” in central Dniepropetrovsk region.
Author: Yohannes Lowe (now ) and Martin Belam (earlier)