The terms, formally presented at negotiations in Istanbul, highlighted Moscow’s refusal to compromise on its long-standing war goals.
The Russian memorandum, published by the Interfax news agency, said a settlement of the war would require international recognition of Crimea and four other regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as its own territory. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from all of them.
Option one, according to the text, was for Ukraine to start a full military withdrawal from the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Of those, Russia fully controls the first but holds only about 70 percent of the rest.
Option two was a package that would require Ukraine to cease military redeployments and accept a halt to foreign provision of military aid, satellite communications and intelligence. Kyiv would also have to lift martial law and hold presidential and parliamentary elections within 100 days.
Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky said Moscow had also suggested a “specific ceasefire of two to three days in certain sections of the front” so that the bodies of dead soldiers could be collected.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv’s delegation, offered no immediate comment on the memorandum.
Delegations from the warring sides met for barely an hour for the second round of negotiations.
They agreed to exchange more prisoners of war – focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded – and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped to bring together Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a meeting in Turkey with Trump.
But there was no breakthrough on a proposed ceasefire that Ukraine, its European allies and Washington have all urged Russia to accept.
Ukraine has proposed holding more talks before the end of June, but believes only a meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin can resolve the many issues of contention, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said. (Reuters)
