Ukraine and Russia held the third round of talks in Istanbul: what they agreed on
23 July 2025 23:04
On the evening of July 23, the third round of peace talks between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations took place in Istanbul, Turkey. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to Suspilne and Anadolu.
The Ukrainian delegation was headed by the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov and consisted of a total of 14 people. The Russian delegation, as before, was headed by Putin’s adviser Vladimir Medinsky.
The meeting of the de-escalation teams ended less than an hour after the start of the negotiations. According to journalists, the heads of the delegations were the first to meet, separately from the rest of the participants.
They spoke in the presence of a mediator, Turkish Minister Hakan Fidan.
“Like last time, before the talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, there was a short preparatory meeting between Rustem Umerov, Hakan Fidan and Medinsky,” the source said.
Prior to the meeting with the Russians, the head of the OP Andriy Yermak and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks in Turkey, Anadolu reports.
“We hope that today’s further opportunity at the meeting with the Russian side in Istanbul, the opportunity to take the right steps, will not be wasted. We are determined to continue working for the release of people from Russian captivity, for the return of our Ukrainian children, for a real ceasefire. The priority is to prepare the meeting of the leaders. Our delegation has the necessary strength to do this,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening address on the talks.
What was agreed upon
At the talks in Istanbul, Ukraine proposed to Russia to hold a meeting of the leaders with the mediation of US President Donald Trump and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The head of the Ukrainian delegation, Rustem Umerov, said this following the meeting.
The Ukrainian side also declared its readiness to cease fire, including strikes on critical and civilian infrastructure. They also discussed the further implementation of the prisoner exchange and the return of detained civilians.
“We are ready to cease fire now and start peace talks,” Umerov said.
The Russian side agreed to the return of people who have been in captivity for more than three years, including the severely wounded and young people.
They also talked about regular sanitary exchanges of prisoners of war – those in poor health.
Preliminarily, we are talking about the return of 1200 people. Children and civilians will not be exchanged, but returned, emphasized Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsya.
The humanitarian track of negotiations with Russia will continue. Kyiv insists on a complete ceasefire and a meeting of the leaders.
“There is some progress on the humanitarian track,” the head of the Ukrainian delegation said.
There is no progress on the ceasefire.
On June 2, the second round of talks between the delegations of Ukraine and Russia took place in Istanbul. As a result of the meeting, the parties agreed to further exchanges of certain categories of military personnel and the exchange of bodies. Kyiv also handed over a list of several hundred Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.
In turn, the Russians handed over their so-called “memorandum” and stated that they were offering Kyiv a temporary ceasefire in certain areas of the frontline.
