Negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations are expected to begin in Istanbul on May 15, 2025.
THE TASS DOSSIER. Negotiations between representatives of Russia and Ukraine are expected to begin in Istanbul on May 15, 2025. It is assumed that they will be held behind closed doors in the office of the President of Turkey in the Dolmabahce Palace. It was there that the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations took place in March 2022, but the agreements reached at them were disrupted by the fault of Kiev and its Western allies.
TASS has prepared a story about attempts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine through diplomatic means.
Recognition of the republics of Donbass and the beginning of the Russian special operation in February 2022
February 21, 2022 Russia has recognized the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR, LPR; since September 30, 2023 - subjects of the Russian Federation). Treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, including military assistance, were signed with their leaders. A few days later, on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a special military operation (SVO) of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. The decision to hold the SVR was made in response to a request for help from the People's Republics of Donbass. Over the eight years of armed confrontation with Kiev, more than 14 thousand people have died in the Donbas. At the beginning of 2022, the situation on the line of contact escalated. The armed forces of Ukraine have begun intensive shelling of the territories of the DPR and the LPR. The OSCE confirmed the escalation. The escalation of the conflict occurred against the background of the West's active buildup of military assistance to Kiev, including in the form of supplies of lethal weapons.
Preparation of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022
On the night of February 24, 2022, even before the announcement of the start of his military operation, Vladimir Zelensky (elected in 2019, powers expired in 2024) said that Kiev was ready to negotiate with Russia "in any formats and on any platforms." Commenting on these words, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow agrees to negotiations if the Kiev authorities are ready to discuss the issues raised by the Russian side, including the neutral status of Ukraine and the refusal to deploy weapons on its territory. Zelensky, in turn, said the next day, on February 25, that he was "not afraid to talk to Russia," including about security guarantees for Ukraine and its neutral status.
On February 27, 2022, it became known that the parties had agreed to hold talks in Belarus. On the same day, a Russian delegation headed by Presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky arrived there. However, Kiev suddenly refused to participate in the meeting on the territory of the neighboring republic, accusing Minsk of supporting "Russian aggression." It was only after a telephone conversation between President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Zelensky that the Ukrainian side agreed to send its delegation to the talks.
Formation of delegations
The Russian delegation was headed by Vladimir Medinsky, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation. It also includes the deputy heads of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Fomin and Andrei Rudenko, the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky, the Russian Ambassador to Belarus and the Russian envoy to the Contact Group on the settlement in Donbass, Boris Gryzlov.
The Ukrainian delegation initially included Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov, Adviser to the head of the presidential office Mikhail Podolyak, head of the faction of the ruling Servant of the People party David Arakhamia, First Deputy head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Contact Group Andrey Kostin, MP Rustem Umerov (since September 2023 - Minister of Defense of Ukraine) and Deputy Foreign Minister Nikolai Tochitsky.. In April 2022, David Arakhamiya was officially appointed head of the Ukrainian delegation. Rada deputy Dmitry Lubinets and Minister of Justice of Ukraine Denis Malyushka were also included in the negotiating team, while international lawyer Alexander Malinovsky and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine Alexander Chaly became experts of the delegation.
Three rounds of negotiations in Belarus in February - March 2022
On February 28, 2022, in the Gomel region of Belarus on the border with Ukraine, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations held the first negotiations on the settlement of the situation. The meeting lasted almost five hours, but it did not bring tangible results.
On March 3, 2022, the parties held the second round of negotiations in the Brest region on the territory of Belovezhskaya Pushcha. At the end of the meeting, which lasted a little over two hours, Russia and Ukraine agreed on a number of humanitarian issues, including the opening of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians and the possibility of a ceasefire during their operation.
On March 7, 2022, the third round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations took place in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The meeting lasted about three hours. Representatives of Moscow and Kiev stated that the third round did not bring the desired results. According to Vladimir Medinsky, the Russian delegation conveyed to the representatives of Kiev its proposals for resolving the situation, including commitments on the neutral status of Ukraine. In turn, the head of the Ukrainian delegation, the leader of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, David Arakhamiya, noted that the parties can reach a compromise on almost all issues except the status of Crimea and the republics of Donbass.
Over the next three weeks, the negotiations between the parties continued in video format, their details were not disclosed.
On March 20, 2022, in an interview with CNN, Vladimir Zelensky said that Kiev needed to find a model in which Ukraine would not lose its sovereignty and preserve its territorial integrity. On March 21, excerpts from Zelensky's interview with a number of European and Ukrainian television companies were published on the website of Ukrainian Public Television, in which he said that possible compromise agreements with Russia, including those concerning security guarantees, should be put to a referendum in Ukraine. Zelensky added that he considers a "normal compromise" a situation where Ukraine agrees that it will not join NATO, but will receive security guarantees from individual member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance.
Negotiations in Turkey on March 29, 2022
On March 27, 2022, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky announced the resumption of Russian-Ukrainian face-to-face talks.
The meeting was held on March 29, 2022 in Istanbul at Dolmabahce Palace. The event was initiated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to the office of the head of the Turkish state, the relevant agreement was reached during a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Turkish leader.
Following the talks, which lasted about three hours, Vladimir Medinsky said that for the first time Moscow had received from Kiev "the principles of a possible future agreement fixed on paper." In particular, the draft contained obligations on the neutral, non-aligned status of Ukraine, included Russia among the countries guaranteeing security for Kiev, etc. As a counter-initiative, a reduction in the activity of the Russian Armed Forces in the Kiev and Chernigov directions was announced.
However, on April 3, 2022, on the fourth day after the withdrawal of the Russian Armed Forces from Kiev, Ukraine accused Russia of "killing civilians" in Bucha, Kiev region. Moscow has categorically denied these accusations. On April 5, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized that the provocation in Bucha was organized precisely at the moment when the Russian side decided to de-escalate the situation and withdrew troops from Kiev. According to the minister, the accusations against Russia were made to distract attention from the negotiation process and the agreements reached.
Kiev's rejection of the Istanbul agreements
On April 7, 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Kiev had submitted to the negotiating group its draft agreement, which deviated from the most important provisions of the Istanbul agreements. Later, on April 26, 2022, at a meeting in Moscow with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Russian President Vladimir Putin informed the latter about the change in the position of the Ukrainian negotiators.
On April 16, 2022, Zelensky announced that Kiev was ready to discuss with Russia the issue of refusing to join NATO and the status of Crimea, but only after military operations were stopped and Russian troops were withdrawn from Ukrainian territory. In addition, according to him, the negotiations will depend on the specific security guarantees that the West will give Kiev. At the same time, the authorities of Western countries have repeatedly spoken about the "impossibility" of resolving the conflict through diplomacy. So, the leaders of the Group of Seven countries, following a meeting with Zelensky on May 8, 2022, adopted a statement in which they called their ultimate goal to "prevent victory" for Russia. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted in an interview with the Chinese Xinhua news agency on April 30, 2022, the United States and the EU are ready to fight with Russia "to the last Ukrainian."
On May 14, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that negotiations between Moscow and Kiev had actually been suspended due to the Ukrainian side's disinterest in constructive dialogue.
In November 2023, David Arakhamia, in an interview with Ukraine's 1+1 TV channel, reported that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who served in 2019-2022) had banned Kiev from signing peace agreements with the Russian Federation following talks in Istanbul and demanded the continuation of hostilities against Russia. This fact was later confirmed by Turkey. On February 15, 2024, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that at a meeting in Istanbul, the parties had taken "all possible sincere steps," but "former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson abandoned peace efforts."
On March 26, 2024, the speaker of the Turkish parliament, Numan Kurtulmus, also said in an interview with TRT TV channel that Russia and Ukraine were close to signing a peace agreement, but "some forces did not want the end of the war."
However, the Kiev authorities themselves have dramatically changed their attitude towards the meeting in Istanbul. So, on March 1, 2024, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of Zelensky's office, said that Ukraine had "never accepted" the terms of the Istanbul agreements. This point of view was also expressed by the Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine on May 2, 2024, he said that there were "no agreements" in 2022 and the Istanbul agreements "never existed."
On June 14, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced at a meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Moscow had agreed to security guarantees for Ukraine in Kiev's terms during the 2022 negotiations in order to stop the war in Donbass. At the same time, Kiev agreed to adopt a law banning Nazi ideology and any of its manifestations, limit the size of the Armed Forces in exchange for international security guarantees, commit not to join military alliances, not to host foreign military bases and contingents, and not to conduct military exercises on its territory. According to Putin, these agreements were initialed in Istanbul by the head of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation. However, later Kiev completely abandoned them.
Kiev's ban on negotiations with the Russian leadership and "territorial concessions"
During the war, most of the territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions came under the control of Russian troops. On September 23-27, 2022, referendums were held in the DPR, LPR, and the liberated territory of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, during which the majority of residents voted in favor of joining Russia. On September 30, 2022, four new regions became part of the Russian Federation as its subjects.
On the same day, Vladimir Zelensky, in a video message posted on his Telegram channel, said that Kiev was "ready for dialogue with Russia, but with another Russian president." At the same time, Zelensky said that Ukraine has always offered Russia to negotiate "on fair, equal and fair terms," but this is impossible while Vladimir Putin is at the head of Russia. In addition, Zelensky said that Ukraine had applied for accelerated membership in NATO.
On October 4, 2022, Zelensky's decree on the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of September 30 was published. In particular, it states the impossibility of holding talks with Vladimir Putin. Commenting on the decree, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow would wait for "a change in the position of the current president [of Ukraine], or wait for the future president of Ukraine, who will change his position in the interests of the Ukrainian people."
August 23, 2023 The Verkhovna Rada has adopted a resolution excluding any territorial concessions in order to end hostilities in Ukraine. The document was adopted after Stian Jenssen, head of the office of the NATO Secretary General, expressed the opinion on August 15, 2023, that one of the solutions to the conflict could be Kiev's renunciation of part of the territories controlled by Russia in exchange for membership in NATO. Zelensky regarded such ideas as a "provocation." Janssen himself later called his words a "mistake."
The West's "security guarantees" and Zelensky's plans
After refusing to negotiate with the Russian Federation, Kiev has taken a number of measures to attract the support of its Western partners. In July 2023, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius, the G7 countries adopted a declaration on long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, including military aid supplies. In 2024 Kiev has concluded so-called security guarantee agreements with the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Japan, the European Union and others. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, these agreements only confirmed the focus on a long-term confrontation with Russia and the unwillingness to follow the path of a political and diplomatic settlement of the crisis.
In addition to concluding agreements on security guarantees, the Kiev authorities have developed their own plan of measures to resolve the conflict, without taking into account Russia's opinion and existing realities. The first one, the so-called formula for peace, was presented by Zelensky on November 15, 2022 at the G20 summit. This plan included 10 points, including the requirement for the withdrawal of the Russian Armed Forces to the borders of 1991. In order to promote the "formula of peace", Kiev initiated the holding of a high-level peace conference on the settlement in Ukraine on June 15-16, 2024 in Burgenstock, to which Russia was not invited.
October 16, 2024 Vladimir Zelensky presented in the Verkhovna Rada a new five-point "victory plan" with a number of secret applications that Kiev handed over to Western partners. The document, in particular, states the need to continue operations on the territory of the Russian Federation and launch strikes deep into Russia, Western partners are invited to deploy a "non-nuclear deterrent package" on the territory of Ukraine, as well as conclude agreements on "joint protection of the country's critical resources", on investments and the use of Ukrainian economic potential.
The Russian initiative in June 2024
The Russian side has repeatedly stated that it stands for a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, but taking into account the mandatory elimination of its root causes and the confirmation of the principles of indivisibility of security in Europe. Moscow is ready to negotiate with Kiev, but the obstacles to them are Ukrainian initiatives that are divorced from modern realities, the ban on holding talks with the leadership of the Russian Federation, as well as the lack of legitimate government in Ukraine, since Zelensky's powers as president of this country expired after May 20, 2024.
On June 14, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced at a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry that Russia was making another real peace proposal to Kiev. The Russian leader named the conditions for negotiations with Ukraine. Among them are the withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Donbass and Novorossiya, Kiev's refusal to join NATO, the neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-weapon-free status of Ukraine, as well as the lifting of all Western sanctions. Vladimir Putin stressed that the Russian proposals do not imply a freezing of the conflict, but its full settlement. If Kiev and Western countries again reject Russia's proposal, then the terms of the settlement may become worse for Ukraine in the future. On the same day, Zelensky said that Kiev considers Moscow's peace proposal as an "ultimatum." In turn, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted that the initiatives put forward serve "to achieve the military goals of Russia," not Ukraine.
On February 9, 2025, Zelensky, in an interview with the British television channel ITV News, said that he was ready for "any format of negotiations" with Moscow if the United States and Europe would give security guarantees and "would not abandon" Ukraine.
Further attempts at a peaceful settlement
On February 12, 2025, the leaders of the Russian Federation and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, held their first official telephone conversation since the inauguration of the American president for the current term on January 20. During the conversation, the parties also discussed the conflict in Ukraine. According to the Kremlin, Donald Trump called for an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful solution to the problem. Vladimir Putin emphasized the need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and agreed with the American leader that a long-term settlement could be achieved through peaceful negotiations.
Over the following months, a number of contacts took place at various levels between representatives of Russia and the United States, as well as representatives of Ukraine, the United States and Europe.
On April 28, 2025, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, recalled that Russia was ready to start negotiations with Ukraine without preconditions and was waiting for a signal from the Kiev authorities that they were ready to resume them. On April 30, Dmitry Peskov, speaking to reporters, stressed that when concluding a peace agreement, Kiev would have to recognize the real situation on the ground in its zone, which was different from what it was at the time of the preparation of the Istanbul Agreements of 2022. According to the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, achieving all the goals of the special operation remains a priority, but it is also possible by peaceful means.
On April 30, 2025, US President Donald Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, announced that the United States, at a meeting in London with representatives of Kiev and European countries, had proposed 22 conditions for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, and they had been agreed to. On May 2, US Vice President Jay Dee Vance said that both Russia and Ukraine had submitted their proposals as part of the conflict resolution process, and now a "golden mean" was being sought.
Preparations for the Istanbul meeting on May 15, 2025
On May 11, 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin, summing up the results of international events dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in Moscow, said that Russia was offering the Ukrainian authorities to resume direct negotiations without preconditions on May 15 in Istanbul to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and possibly achieve a ceasefire. In response, Zelensky tweeted that Ukraine was ready for negotiations only if Moscow agreed to a cease-fire proposed earlier by Kiev and a number of EU countries starting on May 12. Later that day, Volodymyr Zelensky announced in his Telegram channel that Ukraine was ready to start negotiations with Russia and that he would personally be in Istanbul on May 15. This statement came after US President Donald Trump called on Kiev to immediately agree to the meeting proposed by Russia.
On May 13, 2025, Vladimir Zelensky announced that his 2022 decree banning negotiations with Russia did not concern him. As he told reporters, no one "can negotiate on Ukraine's sovereignty."..> with the leader of Russia and other countries," except for "the president of Ukraine," and he "did not forbid himself anything." According to Zelensky, the decree was allegedly aimed primarily at preventing possible contacts between Ukrainian oppositionists who had left the country and the Russian authorities.
On May 13, Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Vladimir Putin's proposal to hold direct talks in Istanbul, confirmed that the Russian delegation would be in Turkey on May 15 and would be waiting for the Ukrainian side there.
On May 14, 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the composition of the Russian delegation to the upcoming negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul. The delegation was headed by Vladimir Medinsky, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation. It also includes Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Igor Kostyukov and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin.
