Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to attend peace talks in Turkey on Thursday, with Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing the venue and US President Donald Trump signaling he may join during the first major overseas trip of his second term.
Putin did not confirm his attendance Wednesday evening, and Zelensky said he would not attend without the Russian leader showing up, but either way, these talks will be the highest-level direct talks between Ukraine and Russia since the Istanbul Talks in March and April 2022 – weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion began.
With the possibility of a return to peace talks in Turkey, Kyiv Post revisits the previous failed negotiations, reviews what was agreed to in Istanbul, and examines how conditions have changed in the last three years.
Does Russia maintain the same maximalist demands? Have weapons supplies, troop numbers, or the health of their economies changed enough for Ukraine or Russia to ease their demands? Finally, how will leadership changes in key allies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany affect the world’s posture towards the warring parties?
Istanbul Talks
In late March 2022, Ukrainian and Russian high-level delegations met in Turkey for the so-called “Istanbul talks,” which sought to end the war in the first few weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Ukraine’s delegation was led by Davyd Arakhamia, a lawmaker, and included Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, while Vladimir Medinsky, a Putin aide, led the Russian delegation.
The major issues of contention at the talks, according to the Istanbul Communiqué, were Ukraine’s NATO status, Crimea, the Russian language, and the size and equipment of Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU).
The Istanbul Communiqué outlined a proposal for Great Britain, France, Turkey, China, Russia, the US, and Belarus to be the guarantors of security for Ukraine.
Article 5 of the document specified that:
“In the event of an armed attack on Ukraine, each of the Guarantor States, after holding urgent and immediate consultations…will provide (in response to and on the basis of an official request from Ukraine) assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack, by immediately taking such individual or joint action as may be necessary, including closing the airspace over Ukraine, the provision of the necessary weapons, using armed force in order to restore and subsequently maintain the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state.”
While this framework included language for security guarantees, Western partners were less than reassuring about their commitments to Ukraine’s security, and Ukraine had reason to be suspicious of external security guarantees after signing the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, where Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees that failed to prevent Russia from invading it in 2014 and again in 2022.
The Istanbul Communiqué also outlined differences in the Ukrainian and Russian positions on the size of the AFU and the types and range of weapons it could have.
For example, Ukraine proposed a personnel strength of 250,000 for its military, whereas the Russians demanded a cap of 85,000. Ukraine proposed having 800 tanks, the Russians wanted 342. Kyiv proposed a limited range for its missiles of up to 280 kilometers (174 miles), while Moscow countered with 40 kilometers (25 miles).
A Foreign Affairs article makes the case that the security guarantee framework in Article 5 of the Istanbul Communique is more precise than NATO’s lauded Article 5 guarantees, did not proscribe Ukraine’s pathway into the European Union, and even included potential future negotiations over the status of Crimea.
But the negotiations subsequently fell apart that spring, due to the West’s unwillingness to agree to security guarantees, Ukraine’s improved position on the battlefield, and the hardened Ukrainian position following the revelations of mass atrocities in Bucha and Irpin.
Russia has pushed the narrative that they were close to agreeing to terms for a peace deal at Istanbul in 2022, but then the Ukrainians withdrew under pressure from the West, in particular, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but Zelensky later refuted this claim in an interview with the Guardian in 2025.
Since their last meeting in Istanbul, the battlefield situation has changed dramatically. Russian forces retreated from the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions as the war became concentrated in the east.
Later that year, Ukraine scored impressive victories, regaining territory in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions with its 2022 counteroffensive.
However, although Ukraine had some military success – crippling Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with sabotage, drones, and long-range missile strikes, it was unable to regain significant territory in its highly anticipated summer 2023 counteroffensive, and the front lines have largely remained unchanged since late 2022.
Except for French President Emmanuel Macron, all major Western leaders involved in peace negotiations in 2022 have been replaced, and many major figures among the Russian and Ukrainian political elites have also departed.
Ukraine and Russia have faced over three years of grinding warfare, which has taken a toll on their economies, militaries, and civilian populations.
According to a British Ministry of Defence report published on May 3, Russian forces have probably lost at least 950,000 men since the start of the full-scale war and 160,000 in the first four months of 2025, “without any major gains.”
But what factors have changed for both sides since 2022?
Russian Position
By all accounts, it appears that Russia is maintaining its maximalist demands on Ukraine, including territorial concessions, limitations on Ukraine’s military capabilities, a prohibition on Ukraine joining NATO, removal of sanctions on Russia, concessions on Russian language and culture in Ukraine, and so-called “denazification.”
The Russians are demanding even more territory since the last meeting in Istanbul, as they’ve amended the Russian Constitution to incorporate Crimea as well as the entirety of the Zaporizhzia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. Some of these regions are mostly controlled by Ukraine, some by Russia, but all are at least partly under Ukrainian control.
For several reasons, it seems illogical that Russia’s demands should be greater in 2025 than in 2022.
During the initial negotiations in Belarus and Turkey in 2022, Russia arguably had a stronger military position than it does today. Russian forces have been unable to expand their territorial control in Ukraine, and have had to move their Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea, and spent much of the last year trying to dislodge Ukrainians from the Kursk Salient.
Still, their hardened bargaining position may represent classical Russian hard-line negotiating, or it may be more indicative of the “sunk costs fallacy,” defined as a situation in which decision-makers escalate commitment to an apparently failing project in order to “recoup” the costs they have already “sunk into it.”
Indeed, Russia faces several important reasons to keep the war going, given that its economy is now dependent on wartime manufacturing and mobilization, and that there are fears over the prospects of demobilizing hundreds of thousands of men currently fighting in Ukraine and what this could mean for regime stability.
There are signs that Russia’s economy is feeling the pressure of existing sanctions and shocks to the global energy market.
The Russian economy remained stubbornly resilient, experiencing growth in 2023 and 2024 despite economic sanctions, but recent forecasts expect the Russian economic growth rate to decrease from 4.1% to 2.5% this year.
Russia’s heavily oil-dependent economy also faces risks over global oil prices, which have dropped below $70 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February of 2022. If global factors keep depressing oil prices, Russia may run out of revenue to pay its bloated armed forces and public sector, and face difficulties in maintaining its war machine.
Europe has also threatened increased sanctions against Russia, with France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Wednesday calling: “to impose devastating sanctions that could suffocate the Russian economy once and for all.”
Still, Russian intransigence towards Ukraine and its backers would indicate that Russia does not see itself negotiating from a position of weakness, but rather that time is on its side in a protracted war with Ukraine, especially given the uncertainties of continued external support for Ukraine.
Ukrainian Position
Ukraine has well-known manpower issues, but this obscures the fact that the size of its armed forces has grown exponentially in the three years since the Istanbul Talks to address the challenge posed by the full-scale invasion.
Ukraine now boasts an armed force of nearly one million soldiers, four times larger than the next largest army in Europe, and four times larger than Ukraine’s 2022 proposed upper limit on its armed forces strength in the Istanbul Communique.
While Ukraine has received substantial military support from the West, it has also dramatically improved its domestic arms manufacturing, nearly tripling from $12 billion to $35 billion over the last year, according to Ukraine’s Strategic Industries Minister Herman Smetanin. He further reported that 30% of the weapons used by the Ukrainian armed forces are produced domestically.
A prime example is the domestically developed Neptune cruise missile, which has a range of 750 kilometers (466 miles). These and other domestically produced weapons, such as drones and missiles, have helped Ukraine to drive the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea.
Despite these achievements, Ukraine has its concerns, including manpower issues, persistent inflation, limited air defenses, and unstable international alliances.
Ukraine is seeking credible security guarantees, if not from the US, then from Europe. Ukraine has also grown increasingly aware of the possibility that it will likely have to rely on itself rather than other countries for security guarantees.
The continued ability of Ukraine to receive external support will influence the cards that Ukraine holds during any future peace negotiations. For now, Ukraine seems intent on no further territorial concessions, invalidating a key Russian demand for the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the four regions that Russia attempted to annex in its constitutional amendments of 2022.
Global Position
Europe has struggled to maintain a united front against Russian aggression amid a wave of Russian-friendly populist parties nearly challenging incumbents in France and Germany.
Still, leaders were in Kyiv last weekend to show support to Zelensky, and threatened increased sanctions on Russia if it refused to agree to a 30-day ceasefire. Europe has grown increasingly vocal about filling the void in leadership for supporting Ukraine, and initially floated plans for a European peacekeeping and reassurance force in Ukraine. These ambitious plans were recently thrown into doubt after discouraging remarks from European defense ministers on the availability and readiness of European forces to deploy to Ukraine.
The incoming German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is thought to be a staunch supporter of Ukraine, but the pro-Russian AFD made significant advances in recent elections. Merz was elected in February, but it took two rounds of voting in the Bundestag to be appointed Chancellor, signalling some potential weakness in his governing coalition.
Keir Starmer has been elected the first Labor PM of the United Kingdom in 14 years, and pledged to retain support for Ukraine. The UK is one of the few countries in Europe where support for Ukraine has retained broad bipartisan support, and the British PM pledged to “ramp up pressure on Putin” by announcing “the largest package of sanctions yet.” These include sanctions on Russia’s “shadow fleet,” which transports oil around the globe, avoiding sanctions.
China has so far taken a cautious approach towards symbolically supporting Russia, yet calling for a 30-day ceasefire.
Iran has been a crucial ally for Russia in its aggression against Ukraine, providing military technology and drones to the Russian armed forces in exchange for badly needed cash for the heavily sanctioned theocracy. Still, recent developments have degraded Iran’s position, including the degradation of its proxy Hezbollah in its war with Israel, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria (another erstwhile Putin ally), and the possibility for rapprochement with the United States.
Any potential thaw in US-Iranian relations could not only drive a wedge between Tehran and Moscow but would also likely result in a lifting of sanctions that could see a glut of cheap Iranian oil depressing global oil prices and further hurting Russia’s petro-dependent economy.
North Korea has actively deployed troops in Russia.
The United States remains an important variable as US President Donald Trump has been much more critical of Zelensky than his predecessor, Joe Biden. Trump has recently become uncharacteristically more critical of Putin, but has yet to implement a major change in US policy.
American weapons shipments have continued to Ukraine, but Congress has yet to approve an additional round of funding for future military shipments to Ukraine.
After consistently criticizing Zelensky during his second administration, Trump has sent mixed messages in recent weeks and grown more critical of Putin. In April, the US and Ukraine signed a minerals deal that was passed into law by Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, last week.
Back to the Drawing Board
It is still unclear whether the two sides will have direct meetings in Turkey this week, but both Ukraine and Russia will arrive at any future peace negotiations with a list of demands and red lines.
Russia’s official lines have not changed, and it has consistently referred to the Istanbul Communique as its minimal demands for peace in Ukraine. Russia will likely continue to stall for time, assuming that a grinding war of attrition favors its military and political needs.
Russia is in no rush to admit defeat, and the threat of ultra nationalist forces and mass demobilization makes the prospect of peace unattractive.
Moscow has invested tremendous amounts of manpower, capital, and political effort in shaping the battlefield and the geopolitical sphere and expects that the operational picture and the geopolitical picture will continue to improve for it in 2025.
For its part, Ukraine has signaled an openness to negotiations on topics such as the status of Crimea, and to freeze the conflict on the current line of contact, and its NATO aspirations. These all represent a major relaxation of Ukraine’s demands in previous years, but Kyiv is also much bolder and more self-assured than it was in 2022.
Ukraine has weathered three years of brutal Russian invasion and bombings, and has outlasted the predictions of even its greatest boosters. Ukrainians want nothing more than an end to the war, but most understand that an unjust peace will allow Russia to regroup and “come back for seconds,” much like they did in 2022.
The advancement in drone warfare has decreased the importance of Russian armor and ships that are susceptible to indigenous Ukrainian drone and missile technology, and also relieved some (but by no means all) of the manpower demands of a modern conventional war.
Kyiv’s Western backers simultaneously promise greater support to Ukraine and harsher penalties towards Russia, but often appear unable or unwilling to deliver on these ambitions. In the end, the balance of power will be determined both on the battlefield much more than in the halls of foreign capitals.
With both Ukraine and Russia feeling confident in their ability to outlast the other, external pressure from other world leaders will probably do little to incentivize either side to change its position. The more relevant factors will be their ability to finance, man, and equip their soldiers for the long haul.