Hopes are growing that Russia-Ukraine peace talks might be close to a breakthrough, though some commentators are sceptical about promises coming from Moscow.
On Tuesday, Russia said it would scale back its operations in the cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv to “increase trust” in the negotiations, as delegations for both sides wrapped up for the day in Istanbul, Turkey.
Russia’s deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin said the announcement is intended “to create conditions for further negotiations”, according to The Associated Press. However, Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian team of negotiators, later said the de-escalation “is not a ceasefire”, according to Reuters, raising questions about how genuine the apparent compromise actually is.
Here’s what we know so far.
What’s happening?
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have resumed peace talks after four previous rounds failed to make much progress.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country hosted Tuesday’s talks, called on both sides to end the war. “Prolonging the conflict is not in anyone’s interest,” Erdogan said.
The first three rounds of in-person talks took place in Belarus. The first talks, on February 28, four days after the Russian invasion, ended without resolution.
On March 14, Russia and Ukraine started a fourth round of talks via video link, and once again ended without a diplomatic resolution despite optimism from both sides.
The end of fighting is the ultimate goal, but even establishing humanitarian routes to provide safe passage for civilians out of the warzone have proved problematic.
What is Russia asking for?
No-one fully understands what Putin’s plans truly are, though his description in 2005 of the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” points to his desire to re-establish something akin to the old USSR.
Strictly in terms of demands from the talks, Russia wants legal assurances that Ukraine will never join the military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – or Nato – and its 30 member nations. They want Ukraine to take a so-called neutral status and change its constitution to guarantee this.
The Kremlin has also demanded that Ukraine acknowledges Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014, as Russian territory. It also wants recognition of the independence of pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas. The conflict in the region, which has claimed at least 14,000 lives, was Russia’s fabricated pretext to invade Ukraine last month.
The Financial Times reported on Monday that some of the demands in the draft agreement prepared as part of the peace talks had been modified. Russia is still asking for Ukraine to stay out of the Nato alliance, but would allow Kyiv to join the EU and have other security guarantees. The draft document has also been stripped any discussion of three of Russia’s initial core demands – “denazification”, “demilitarisation” and legal protection for the Russian language in Ukraine.
What is Ukraine asking for?
The Ukrainian delegation is seeking a ceasefire and a troop withdrawal. Ukraine has said it is willing to negotiate, but not to surrender or accept any ultimatums. Its delegates have given no signal they are willing to compromise on its territories.
But Kyiv has shown willingness to bend on Nato. Since 2019, joining Nato has been enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution. Ukraine becoming part of the alliance would represent the latest member of the former Soviet bloc to join, after enlargement in the 1990s and 2000s brought in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The growth of Nato – where each member agrees to mutual defence in response to an enemy attack – has been Putin’s biggest publicly-stated grievance with the US and its allies during the build-up up to war.
Ahead of the last round of talks, Ukraine indicated it had “cooled” on the long-term objective of membership. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who publicly supported Nato membership before Russia invaded, said Ukraine was prepared to accept security guarantees that stop short of joining Nato.
On Sunday, Zelenskyy confirmed he is open to neutrality in Ukraine, which would also mean the country would have to remain impartial in any future conflicts and no foreign military bases would be allowed on its territory.
“Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it,” Zelenskyy told Russian journalists, according to an English translation provided by Reuters.
All other countries in Europe that are considered neutral, including Austria, Finland and Ireland, continue to have their own militaries to be able to fight back in case they are attacked, according to Vox.
Still, Zelenskyy added that a ceasefire agreement would have to be reached before any deal, including a neutrality commitment, goes to a referendum. A “referendum is impossible when there is the presence of troops”, he said.
Ukraine has also sought security guarantees from countries including Russia, the US, Germany and China, David Arakhamia, head of Zelenskyy’s party in parliament and a member of Ukraine’s negotiating team, told the Financial Times. Those guarantees would work similarly to Nato’s Article 5 clause where countries are committed to support a member being attacked, Arakhamia explained.
Is a breakthrough actually possible?
Russia’s promise to scale back military operations around Kyiv and northern Ukraine may be born of its failing military campaign rather than a genuine appetite for peace. In any case, the West and Ukraine are not confident an imminent breakthrough is possible.
An anonymous senior US state department official told Reuters on Monday: “Everything I have seen is [Putin] is not willing to compromise at this point.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Zelenskyy, told ABC News on Thursday that even though there was genuine engagement from Russia in the peace talks, it could still be months before any conclusion is reached.
“They’re absolutely real negotiations,” Podolyak said. “There’s no attempt to stall for time. That’s definitely not there.”
Story has been updated throughout based on the latest round of peace talks