Territorial concessions key in Ukraine-Russia talks

If the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, meet in Istanbul on 15 May, territory — and who controls it - will be high on their agenda.

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Putin offered to start direct talks between Russia and Ukraine at a press conference on 11 May. Donald Trump pushed Zelensky to accept this offer in a social media post, saying that “Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”

The Ukrainian President, still buoyed by a meeting with the British, French, German and Polish leaders that called for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, agreed shortly afterwards.

Russia has said it wants to focus on the Istanbul communique of March 2022 and a subsequent draft agreement that was negotiated, but never adopted, by the two sides in April 2022. These 2022 negotiations focused on Ukraine becoming a permanently neutral state and on which nations would provide security guarantees for any deal. They also relegated discussions over Crimea to separate negotiations with a ten-to-15-year timeframe.

Russia uses the phrase “the current situation on the ground” as thinly disguised code for territorial questions that have become more contentious over the past three years. This relates to Russian gains on the battlefield and the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions in September 2022.