Negotiations of Ukraine and Russia yield prisoners, no more

The sensational Ukrainian drone attack on Russian Air Force Bases from last weekend was not only a military blow to Moscow, but also a signal to Russia and the West: Ukraine does not intend to give up and still has trumps. The attack, in which strategic bombers were destroyed deep in Russia, came to Turkey this Monday just before new negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Little was expected from the discussions in Istanbul beforehand. Russia has performed its attacks lately and the diplomatic run -up also did not promise much good. During an earlier meeting, Russia and Ukraine agreed that they would write their ideas about a ceasefire and a peace agreement and exchange those documents prior to a second meeting. Russia did not comply with that agreement, not even after a telephone conversation from US President Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

An hour

Ukraine sent a large delegation to Istanbul on Monday, led by Minister of Defense Roestem Oemerov. After an hour the conversations were already over. Oemerov reported that it was agreed to exchange all the seriously injured soldiers younger than twenty -five years. The remains of six thousand soldiers will also be exchanged. In addition, Russia has handed over a memorandum that wants to study Ukraine. KYIV has proposed to continue talking in three weeks.

Last month the two countries talked each other immediately for the first time in three years. Even then a prison exchange was agreed, and even then it did not come to serious conversations about a ceasefire. The Ukrainian president Zensky had called Putin a personal meeting in Turkey, but the Russian president had not responded to that.

The negotiating positions of both countries are so far apart that many experts consider it almost impossible that the gap is quickly bridged. Ukraine thinks that Russia is trying to force the country to capitulate. Russia states that KYIV will lose even more territory if it does not quickly accept the Russian conditions for a peace agreement.

Ukraine first wants a cease-fire to talk further about the future. Moscow rejected that idea on Monday in Istanbul. Russia first wants to talk about what it calls the root causes of the conflict. For example, Moscow demands a guarantee that NATO will not expand in an easterly direction and that Russia conquered Ukrainian area as Russian is recognized. Both conditions are not acceptable for KYIV.

Mediation attempts

Ukraine has been blaming Russia for months that it does nothing but stretch time. The American Think Tank Institute for the Study of War Last weekend it wrote that the Russia still wants to conquer area in Ukraine and that the country is preparing for a long -term war and a possible conflict with NATO.

In the meantime, the attitude of the White House is unclear. President Trump has thrown himself as a mediator but reaches virtually nothing and gets frustrated. First he put Ukraine under pressure to be flexible in peace talks. Later he was furious with Russia that, in the midst of his mediation attempts, bombarded Ukrainian cities. Putin has become insane, Trump wrote on social media.

As the weeks passed, the US realized that it was harmful to the president’s image if Putin kept him on the line. Trump has since warned that he is considering stopping the mediation attempt.

Import duties of 500 percent

Two American senators, the Republican Lindsey Graham and the Democrat Richard Blumenthal lobbying for some time for a comprehensive sanction package that Russia still has to move to compliance. The senators want to impose import duties of 500 percent on goods from countries that purchase Russian oil and other raw materials. That would arrive hard in countries such as China and India that purchase many raw materials from Russia and thus make an important contribution to the financing of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

It has become clear to me that Putin is preparing for more war

The senators say they have a generous majority of 82 proponents in the 100 -seat Senate. In the highly polarized American politics, Ukraine is one of the few topics in which both parties can find each other.

Graham spoke on Monday in Berlin with EU committee chairman Ursula von der Leyen about coordination of sanctions. The EU is working on an eighteenth sanction package in which the financial sector is tackled and that is aimed at lowering the price of Russian oil.

The senators were also in Paris and Kyiv last weekend to recruit against Putin for hard measures. They see a solid sanction package as a final attempt to force Putin to concessions before Russia could launch a new offensive at the start of the autumn. « On this trip it became clear to me that he is preparing for more war, » said Graham about Putin.

Graham says that his sanction proposal is intended as a support for Trumps attempts to force Putin into concessions. It is uncertain whether Trump would be willing to make Putin really difficult. When asked about the proposal from the senators, Trump said at the end of last week that he still had to study it.

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