After some diplomatic gyrations, talks between the Russian Federation and Ukraine took place today in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Russian side had sent largely same delegation which had negotiated with Ukraine in March and April 2022. It sees the current negotiations as a continuation of the older ones, provided that new facts on the ground are taken into account.
The Ukrainian delegation was headed by its Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov. Its task was to demand an immediate ceasefire and to prepare a meeting between the presidents of the two countries.
The talks ended after just two hours.
The Russian side is said to have demanded a Ukrainian retreat from the four oblast the Russians have largely conquered and integrated into their country.
The Ukrainian side demanded an immediate ceasefire, the return of children the Russians had removed from the areas involved in military operations and the exchange of all prisoners (of which Russia has many more than Ukraine). It is obvious that Ukrainian side is not interested (yet) in making peace.
Both sides rejected the other side's demands and that was it. For now …
The balance of power in the war is clearly on the Russian side. The Ukrainian army will thus continue to bleed and lose on the battlefield.
Another exchange of dead soldiers also occurred today. Thirty four corpse of Russia soldiers were exchanged against 909 Ukrainian ones. The rather absurd relation of 1 to 27 has been the case for quite a while. Indeed it seems that Russian side has limited the number of Ukrainian corpses it is willing to release per exchange to 909.
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There are three reasons that contribute to the strong divergence of the numbers of dead on each side.
- For the Ukrainian side the evacuation of dead (and wounded) soldiers is not a priority.
- The Russian side is moving forwards winning control of areas that the Ukrainian side has lost. This allows to collect all dead while not being under fire.
- The Ukrainian losses are in general much higher than the Russian ones.
Lieutenant-General Andrey Mordvichev, who the Ukrainians had claimed to have killed on March 19 2022, has become the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces in the rank of a Colonel-General.
The Ukrainian government 'lost' over $700 million buying arms and munitions which were never delivered or unusable.
How Ukraine lost hundreds of millions on arms deals gone wrong (archived) – Financial Times, May 16 2025
Desperate to source munitions, Kyiv paid foreign brokers for weapons and shells that were sometimes unusable or never arrived
A Financial Times investigation, based on leaked Ukrainian state documents, court filings and dozens of interviews with procurement officials, weapons dealers and manufacturers, and detectives, has uncovered how hundreds of millions of dollars Kyiv paid to foreign arms intermediaries to secure vital military equipment has gone to waste over the past three years of war.
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To date, Ukraine has paid out $770mn in advance to foreign arms brokers for weapons and ammunition that have not been delivered, according to figures from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, as well as documents seen by the FT.
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Most the deals have (presumably) involved large bribes.