Russia and Ukraine held their first direct peace talks since March 2022 in Istanbul on Friday and agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each.
Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he did not have “high expectations” about the talks and said there would be no breakthrough on agreeing to a cease-fire unless there was a direct meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Friday, Trump told reporters in Abu Dhabi that a meeting with Putin would happen “as soon as we can set it up.”
“I think it’s time for us to just do it,” he added.
Trump later told reporters: “He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it or maybe not. At least we’ll know. And if we don’t solve it, it’ll be very interesting.”
On Friday, a Ukrainian delegation, led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, sat down opposite a Russian team headed by Putin’s presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.
After the talks, which lasted less than two hours, Umerov told the BBC, “We have discussed the cease-fire issue. And the issue of [prisoner] swaps. The result is the swap of 1,000 persons for 1,000. That’s the result of our meeting.”
Medinsky confirmed the prisoner of war exchange, which would be the largest since the war broke out in February 2022. He said both sides had also agreed to provide detailed proposals for a cease-fire.
Putin rejected an offer by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to have direct talks in the Turkish capital, Ankara, this week.
Zelenskyy flew to Ankara on Thursday, but when Putin opted out of coming, the Ukrainian leader decided not to attend the talks in person.
Ahead of the talks, Zelenskyy accused Moscow of not being serious about peace and said the Russian delegation was just “a theater prop.”
“I don’t know if he’s showing up. I know he would like me to be there. And that’s a possibility,” Trump added.
Trump said, “I don’t believe anything’s going to happen whether you like it or not, until [Putin] and I get together ... But we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.”
But on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had no plans to travel to Turkey in the next few days.
On Friday, when asked about the possibility of a meeting between Trump and Putin, Peskov told reporters that high-level talks were “certainly needed.”
Putin Charts ‘Negotiating Position’
The statement said, “The president [Putin] summed up the meeting results, set tasks and charted the negotiating position of the Russian delegation in Istanbul.”In a brief statement, Medinsky said, “The task of these direct negotiations with Ukraine is to establish long-term peace sooner or later by eliminating the root causes of this conflict.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Zelenskyy in Ankara on Thursday, and the Ukrainian leader was then due to head to Albania for a meeting of European leaders.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is already in Albania, said, “There was only one country that started this conflict, that was Russia. That was Putin. There’s only one country now standing in the way of peace, that is Russia. That is Putin.”
The war has killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides and an unspecified number of Ukrainian civilians.
Russia unilaterally declared a three-day cease-fire from May 8 through May 10 to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the day Nazi Germany was defeated during World War II, known in Russia as “Victory Day.”
But the fighting resumed last week, and Ukraine has reported it has come under fresh attacks from Russian drones this week.
On Friday morning, the Ukrainian air force reported one of its U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jets had crashed, although the pilot ejected safely.
“According to preliminary data ... an unusual situation arose on board. The pilot moved the aircraft away from the settlement and successfully ejected,” the Ukrainian air force said on its Telegram channel.
It’s the second loss of an F-16 by Kyiv since they began receiving the planes last year in a deal approved by former U.S. President Joe Biden.
In August 2024, an F-16 crashed, and the pilot was killed during a Russian air strike.
