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US President Donald Trump is open to attending a proposed peace summit in Istanbul with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the White House announced on Monday, indicating a potential high-stakes diplomatic intervention as the war continues.
“The president has said he’s open to it if it comes to that, but he wants both of these leaders and both sides to come to the table together," US Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing.
The announcement came as Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul for a second round of peace talks . While both sides agreed to a large-scale prisoner exchange, the talks failed to produce a breakthrough on a ceasefire.
Ukrainian delegate Sergiy Kyslytsya said Moscow once again rejected Kyiv’s proposal for an unconditional halt to hostilities. “The Russian side continued to reject the motion of an unconditional ceasefire,” he told reporters following the discussions.
Russia has consistently resisted ceasefire proposals it views as opportunities for Ukraine to regroup and resupply, particularly as Russian forces press forward in contested regions.
After the talks, Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti published the text of the Russian memorandum, which suggested that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the four regions that Russia annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured as a condition for a ceasefire.
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More ShortsAs an alternate way of reaching a truce, the memorandum presses Ukraine to halt its mobilization efforts and freeze Western arms deliveries, conditions were suggested earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The document also suggests that Ukraine stop any redeployment of forces and ban any military presence of third countries on its soil as conditions for halting hostilities.
The Russian document further proposes that Ukraine end martial law and hold elections, after which the two countries could sign a comprehensive peace treaty that would see Ukraine declare its neutral status, abandon its bid to join NATO, set limits on the size of its armed forces and recognize Russian as the country’s official language on par with Ukrainian.
Ukraine and the West have previously rejected all those demands from Moscow.
In other steps, the delegations agreed to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action and to set up a commission to exchange seriously wounded troops.
Earlier on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated his offer to mediate directly between the warring parties and invited Trump to join a potential trilateral summit. “My greatest wish is to bring both Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy together in Istanbul or Ankara, and even to bring Mr. Trump to their side, if they accept,” Erdoğan said.
While no date has been set, Trump’s openness to the invitation adds a new dimension to the stalled negotiations and could heighten pressure on Moscow and Kyiv to explore diplomatic off-ramps. The White House emphasised that Trump’s participation would depend on “genuine readiness” from all sides to seek a path toward peace.
With inputs from agencies