Less than time, the second meeting of the Russian-Ukraine delegations, which took place earlier today in Constantinople under the supervision of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and in the presence of the head of Turkish intelligence (MIT). The meeting took place at the Ottoman Palace of Chirates on the European side of the Bosporus and attracted a strong interest from local and international media that had flooded the area around the palace.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said that “the meeting was completed without a negative result”, a statement that could be interpreted as a good sign given the war atmosphere between Russia and Ukraine over the last 24 hours.

Although there was no joint press conference, there were significant individual announcements by the two delegations of Russia and Ukraine.

Humanitarian agreement to exchange captives and 12,000 corpses

The most important announcement made much after the end of the talks was that Ukraine and Russia reached an important agreement to carry out the largest exchange of prisoners and corpses since the start of the war in February 2022. and seriously weak prisoners of war, also young soldiers aged 18 to 25 years and returning 6,000 to 6,000 (12,000) of the dead soldiers on both sides, stressing that while the deal is focused on specific categories and not on fixed numbers, it is clear.

Umero reiterated Kiev’s broader demands, while stressing that the Ukrainian side insists on releasing all prisoners and the return of all prisoners.

Vladimir Mentinsky, head of the Russian delegation, also confirmed the deal, saying it was the largest exchange of prisoners of war ever and stressed that Moscow would return the corpses of 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers. This agreement appears to have been finalized today during the talks at the Palace of Chirates.

Ukrainians’ request for the repatriation of Russia abducted was an important aspect of today’s negotiations. Following the end of the talks, Andriy Germak, President of President Zelenski, said that members of the Ukrainian delegation handed Russian negotiators a list of names of hundreds of children who ask Moscow to return to Ukraine. He said they were hundreds of children that Russia “has illegally removed, deported violently or holds (Ukrainian) territories that are temporarily possessed”.

A first step with tangible results

Today’s negotiations may not have brought about the end of the war or at least a truce, but they had tangible results, such as the exchange of prisoners and the corpses of fallen soldiers. This was the first step. It was typical of the statement by the Ukrainian Defense Minister who said that in his opinion “all critical issues in talks with Russia can only be resolved at the leadership level” and proposed a new meeting between June 20 and 30 to make progress.

In this statement, President Erdogan responded immediately, who stressed that “after the latest talks by Russia-Ukraine delegations, we will take measures to meet the leaders”.

Apparently a third round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia should not be excluded, even the implementation of a sincere peace target on both sides. After all, the fact that peace can be achieved in the Ukrainian is also believed by the US president.