In a flurry of diplomacy following conclusive direct Russian-Ukraine discussions in Istanbul, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has stated that he and the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, and Poland want to speak with Donald Trump in advance of the president’s scheduled phone call with Vladimir Putin on Monday.
Merz claimed to have spoken with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, during their visit to Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass in the Vatican on Sunday. Merz and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, spoke for a while at the Vatican.
Marco Rubio and I spoke about the call scheduled for tomorrow, too. In order to prepare for this conversation with Putin, we have agreed to speak with the four state leaders and the US president.
Trump stated that he would speak with Zelenskyy and Putin to discuss ways to end the “bloodbath” of the conflict.
Russian media reported that Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, had been given a heads-off in Moscow to confirm that a conversation between Putin and Trump was being planned.
The sides had their first face-to-face discussions since March 2022, just weeks after Russia’s massive invasion of its neighbor, at the talks in Istanbul, Turkey.
The heads of both delegations believed it would be their biggest such exchange since the war started, but the brief discussions only led to an agreement to swap 1, 000 prisoners of war, according to the heads of the two delegations.
Russian negotiators demanded that Ukraine withdraw its troops from all of the Ukrainian regions that Moscow had claimed before agreeing to a ceasefire, according to a senior Ukrainian official with knowledge of the talks. As it stands, Russia does not have complete control over those areas, which is a red line for Ukraine.
According to a source in the Ukrainian delegation, Zelenskyy and JD Vance met on the sidelines of the papal inauguration. Zelenskyy and Vance have spoken for the first time since their public altercation in February over the course of the Ukrainian war.
Ukraine is concerned about ballistic missile attacks.
In the interim, Ukraine has claimed that Russia intends to deceive it and its Western allies by launching an intercontinental ballistic missile late on Sunday.
Russia’s GUR, the country’s military intelligence agency, claimed it had a “training and combat” launch of the missile.
The launch was mandated to take place from Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, according to a statement from GUR on the Telegram app, adding that the missile’s range exceeded 10,000 kilometers (6, 200 miles).
Ukraine reported on Sunday that Russia had launched a record number of drones overnight, aiming at various areas, including the city’s capital, where a woman was killed.
According to its air force, “273 Shahed attack drones and various types of imitator drones” were launched by Russia, of which 128 were “without negative consequences” (88).
It was a “record” number of drones, according to deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko. She stated that “Russia has a clear goal: to continue killing civilians.”
According to Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, who was based in Kyiv, “air raid sirens started, and they went on for nearly nine hours.”
“We see these massive drone strikes and crowds of people looking for safety in those deep underground subway stations in the capital and other parts of the country, once more,” said Basravi.
“Deliberate killing of civilians”
Overnight and Sunday morning, the Russian military said it had intercepted 25 Ukrainian drones. In spite of the talks, it claimed to have taken control of Bahatyr, a second village in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities vehemently denounced Russia’s overnight drone attacks.
After a Russian drone on Saturday killed nine bus passengers in the Sumy region of northeast Ukraine, Zelenskyy once more demanded stronger sanctions against Moscow. He claimed that this was a deliberate killing of civilians.
Russia must be put under “pressure” to put an end to the killings. Russia won’t pursue real diplomacy without more stringent sanctions and greater pressure.
Russia, which denies attacking civilian targets, said it struck a military post in Sumy. According to its Ministry of Defense, another settlement was seized in eastern Ukraine.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s top aide, also decried the attacks.
The negotiations in Istanbul are “just a pretence,” according to Russia. Yermak claimed that Putin wants to fight.
Russia’s goal is to “create the conditions for lasting peace.”
Putin stated in an interview with Russian state television that Putin’s goal was to “eliminate the causes that triggered this crisis, create the conditions for a lasting peace, and guarantee Russia’s security” without going into further detail.
Russia typically refers to alleged grievances with Kyiv and the West as justification for the invasion in February 2022 when referring to the “root causes” of the conflict.
They include commitments to “de-Nazify” and “demilitarise” Ukraine, defend Russian speakers in the east, counteract NATO expansion, and stop Ukraine’s geopolitical drift in the west.
Russia’s offensive is nothing more than an imperial-style land grab, claim Ukraine and the West, rejecting all of them.
Since Russia started the war, tens of thousands of people have died, with many others forced to flee their homes.
Putin claimed that the Russian army, which controls 20% of Ukraine, has the “troops and means required” to accomplish its objectives.
Rubio and Sergey Lavrov, who is also in Russia, spoke with each other on Saturday, according to a statement from the US Department of State. Rubio praised the prisoner-exchange agreement reached in Istanbul during the call, according to the department’s spokesperson.
Rustem Umerov, the country’s top negotiator, claimed a meeting between the two presidents would be the “next step.”
