Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul on July 23 for a third round of talks since face-to-face negotiations resumed in May. Expectations were low. Two previous rounds have yielded very few concrete results, apart from agreements on prisoner exchanges and the return of the bodies of soldiers killed in action.
The latest meeting was the shortest yet, lasting just 40 minutes. The negotiating teams were led by former Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov and Vladimir Medinsky, a senior aide to Russian president Vladimir Putin. They agreed on another exchange of prisoners and on setting up three working groups on political, military and humanitarian issues to engage online rather than in face-to-face meetings.
But if the talks have achieved very little, they have demonstrated two things. First, that the two sides remain very far apart on what they would consider acceptable terms for a ceasefire, let alone a peace agreement. And, second, that neither side is prepared to walk away from the negotiations, worried about incurring the wrath of the US president, Donald Trump.
