Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, the second round of direct talks since 2022, ended barely an hour after they began on Monday. Already the talks had started two hours late raising doubts if they would ever take place. A new prisoner exchange deal and the need for another round of talks is all they could get out of this meeting in an already tense atmosphere.
A day earlier Ukraine had set a massive Ukrainian drone attack targeting Russia’s nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and elsewhere.
Ukraine damaged $2 billion worth of Russian aircraft parked at airbases thousands of kilometres away just as Kyiv announced a Russian military strike had killed at least 12 soldiers at an army training site, leading to the resignation of its ground forces commander.
Russia also said two bridges that collapsed in regions bordering Ukraine were brought down by explosions. Officials were treating them as “acts of terrorism” but had not immediately accused Ukraine.
These developments came as Russian airstrikes were the most intense since the outbreak of the conflict more than three years ago. In tandem, Moscow has achieved further territorial gains in northeastern Ukraine.
Russia currently controls just under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100 square km, about the same size as the US state of Ohio.
On the diplomatic front, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Turkish counterpart in Moscow on 27 May, after which he said Russia might once again turn to its “Turkish friends” to sponsor a second round of negotiations with Kyiv. Prior to this, on 24 May, Moscow announced that it had conducted a prisoner exchange with Kyiv, leading to the return of 307 Russian POWs in exchange for the release of an equal number of Ukrainian POWs. Nevertheless, such signals remain minor against an overall backdrop that offers little hope for resolving the crisis in the foreseeable future.
Among the newly emergent difficulties is the surge in personal tensions between Putin and Trump. The latter has made those explicit in his angry posts on Truth Social. Putin is “playing with fire,” he said, expressing his frustration at Russia’s reluctance to resume ceasefire talks while its forces sustain strikes and steadily advance on the ground in Ukraine. “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realise is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD,” Trump posted.
The rising temperature between Moscow and Washington is reflected in the stances of other official quarters in Washington. On 21 May, the US Defence Intelligence Agency – in its Global Threat Assessment report – accused Russia of developing new nuclear capabilities, including air-to-air missiles that could be equipped with nuclear warheads. The report claimed Russia maintains a nuclear stockpile consisting of deployed strategic and non-strategic warheads citing an estimated 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and up to 2,000 non-strategic warheads.
While US officials warn that Russian advances threaten US strategic interests and global zones of influence, Russian officials counter that Western military buildups in Eastern Europe – including long-range missile systems with potential nuclear capabilities – pose direct threats to Russia’s security. They also emphasise that it was the US that unilaterally withdrew from key nuclear arms control and reduction treaties.
Some Western analysts have expressed concern that Russia’s recent escalation of military operations, combined with newly enhanced anti-drone defence capacities and the recapture of most if not all of the Kursk bridgehead will reduce Kyiv’s leverage in any de-escalation efforts. On 28 May, Russian Air Defences reportedly brought down 112 Ukrainian drones within three hours, demonstrating a growing ability to neutralise what has been one of the Ukrainian forces’ most effective offensive capacities. During a visit to the Kursk region in March, Putin also urged Russian military leaders to consider creating a “buffer zone” in Ukrainian territory adjacent to the Russian border.
Despite the recent prisoner exchange, trust is still lacking between Russia, on the one hand, and Kyiv and its Western backers on the other. On 28 May, Putin reiterated Russia’s long-standing conditions for ending the war: written, legal and binding guarantees from Western leaders to halt NATO’s eastward expansion, Ukraine’s commitment not to seek NATO accession, and protections for the cultural, religious, and human rights of the ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine. It also demands a resolution to the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West. Kyiv and European governments accuse Moscow of stalling while its forces continue their advance in eastern Ukraine.
To further ratchet up Russian-European tensions, Kyiv’s European allies crossed another of their red lines on the types of weapons they supply to Kyiv. Previously, the NATO powers had stipulated that Ukraine could only use Western-supplied long-range weapons against Russian targets within Ukraine. On 26 May, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart in Berlin, announced that Germany would assist Ukraine in producing long-range missiles domestically with the ability to strike targets inside Russia. “Our defence ministers will sign a letter of intent today on procuring long-range weapon systems produced in Ukraine – so-called Long-Range Fires,” Merz said during a joint press conference with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin. “There will be no restrictions on range.”
Russia has since accused Berlin of fuelling the war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the missile protocol as “nothing but an attempt to force Ukrainians to keep fighting,” adding that Berlin’s actions were undermining efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
European powers are manoeuvring to capitalise on Trump’s current impatience with Putin to convince him to return to the hard power approach against Russia. Part of this would entail intensifying their anti-Russian propaganda, as occurred when Britain recently suggested that Moscow was behind the arson attacks on properties and a vehicles linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “London always believes Moscow is behind everything bad that happens in Britain,” the Kremlin retorted in a statement on 26 May.
At present, it appears that the European powers will continue to push for continued and increasingly direct involvement in Ukraine, despite Russia’s warnings. The immediate aim may be to try to help Ukraine halt the current Russian offensive and win the Trump administration over to this approach, which ultimately aims to impose a Korean-style DMZ freeze, as was discussed in the London summit on Ukraine earlier this year.
On the other hand, the avenues to dialogue may still be open. On 30 May, Dmitry Peskov stated that President Putin was open to a possible meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky and US President Donald Trump, pending substantial preparation. “President Putin, in principle, supports the possibility of a personal meeting with Zelensky and Trump. Such contacts are in demand, but require proper groundwork,” Peskov said.
He added that Moscow expects both Ukrainian and Russian draft memorandums to be discussed during a potential second round of negotiations in Istanbul. According to Foreign Minister Lavrov, in remarks to reporters on 28 May, the Russian memorandum would outline what Moscow maintains are the root causes of the conflict.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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