Ukraine war: New peace talks begin, but expectations for a breakthrough are muted
New talks between Russia and Ukraine are getting underway in Istanbul on Tuesday, to try and bring an end to the war which is now in its second month.
The talks are taking place in the Dolmabahçe Palace, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed the negotiators to Istanbul on Tuesday morning saying both Ukraine and Russia have "legitimate concerns" and called on them to "put an end to this tragedy."
The talks come as Russia says it wants to refocus its invasion efforts to consolidate ground held in the east of the country, in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas region.
However Ukrainian forces have started to regain ground in several key towns, giving them some possible leverage for diplomatic talks.
“We still have to fight, we have to endure,” Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation. “We can’t express our emotions now. We can’t raise expectations, simply so that we don’t burn out.”
The Russian negotiators arrived on Monday in Istanbul, where a previous round of talks took place on 10 March at foreign minister level but failed to produce any progress. The talks then continued by video conference.
Ahead of the talks, Zelenskyy said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, in comments that might lend momentum to negotiations.
Zelenskyy said over the weekend that compromise might be possible over “the complex issue of Donbas,” the hotly contested region in the country’s east. It's unclear how that might be reconciled with his stance that “Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt”.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO, which Moscow sees as a threat. Zelenskyy, for his part, has
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