Russia says peace 'memorandum' drafted, will present it to Ukraine next week in Turkey

Russia on Wednesday (May 28) confirmed that it had drafted a peace “memorandum” mentioning its terms for ending the Ukraine conflict. Moscow said that this document would be presented to Kyiv at a new round of direct talks in Istanbul next week.

The development comes on the heels of the two sides trading waves of massive aerial attacks in recent weeks, with Ukraine unleashing one of its largest-ever drone barrages on Russia overnight, according to the defence ministry in Moscow.

“Our delegation, led by Vladimir Medinsky, is ready to present this memorandum to the Ukrainian delegation and provide the necessary explanations during a second round of direct talks in Istanbul on Monday, June 2,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“I would like to once again express our gratitude to our Turkish partners for providing a hospitable venue, as confirmed yesterday by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan during his visit to Moscow,” Lavrov added.

Earlier, on May 16, delegations from Russia and Ukraine had met in Istanbul for their first face-to-face talks on the conflict in over three years amid a United States-led diplomatic push to end the fighting. While those talks did not yield a breakthrough in the war, it did lead to both sides agreeing to a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner swap – their largest ever exchange.

Russia has consistently rejected coordinated Western calls for an immediate ceasefire, including recent ones from US Donald Trump, while Ukraine has called on allies to ramp up pressure on Kremlin to accept a peace deal.

The Russian army now controls around a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.

On the battlefield, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russia was “amassing” more than 50,000 troops on the front line around the northeastern Sumy border region, where Moscow’s army has captured a number of settlements as it seeks to establish what Russian leader Vladimir Putin has called a “buffer zone” inside Ukrainian territory.

More to come