UPD: Ukrainian media reported details of the meeting. The head of the Ukrainian delegation, Rustem Umerov, stated that the Russian side did not agree to a ceasefire and a meeting of leaders. However, the delegations agreed on the exchange of all seriously ill prisoners of war, as well as prisoners under 25 years old. There will also be an exchange of bodies of the deceased, 6000 for 6000. The Ukrainian side proposed holding a new round of negotiations at the end of June.
Journalist Oliver Carroll from The Economist, citing a source, wrote on the social network X that in response to Ukraine's call to return more than a hundred children taken to the Russian Federation, the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said: «Don't put on a show for compassionate European old ladies who have no children of their own».
According to TASS, Medinsky reported that the Russian Federation is unilaterally transferring 6,000 frozen bodies of servicemen to Ukraine next week. He also confirmed the exchange of seriously ill and wounded «all for all». The Russian Federation and Ukraine will organize medical commissions for the exchange of severely wounded fighters, and exchanges will be regular, Medinsky stated.
Russia proposed a 2-3 day ceasefire to Ukraine in certain areas of the front to collect the bodies of the deceased.
Meanwhile, Medinsky showed a list of 339 names of children handed over by Ukraine, noting that the Russian Federation will consider each situation without exception from the Ukrainian list of children who lost contact with their parents. It is claimed that recently the Russian side returned 101 children, and the Ukrainian side about 20, but it is not reported where the Russian children were moved from.
After the conclusion of the talks in Istanbul, which lasted about an hour, the head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak, reported that the Ukrainian side officially handed over to the Russian side a list of Ukrainian children who need to be returned. «We are talking about hundreds of children whom Russia illegally deported, forcibly relocated, or is holding in temporarily occupied territories», he noted.
Yermak added that the return of Ukrainian children is an integral part of a just and lasting peace and a key element of trust, the first test of sincerity of intentions, and now «the ball is in Russia's court».
He also recalled that during the negotiations between Ukraine and the USA in Jeddah, Ukraine was ready for a 30-day truce, and since then nothing has changed.
Earlier, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported that since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russia deported 19,500 children from Ukraine, and more than a thousand young Ukrainians were returned home.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, stating that they may be responsible for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
Recently, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted as a basis a draft law on establishing responsibility for the illegal relocation and use of children for military purposes by a representative of a foreign state. In September last year, at the UN Security Council, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski noted that Moscow is kidnapping children in Ukraine and taking them to the Russian Federation to make them Russians, where they are «brainwashed to deprive them of memories and national identity», comparing it to the actions of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Russia and Ukraine exchanged documents on settlement at the talks in Istanbul and are preparing a new release of prisoners. This was confirmed in a brief press approach by the head of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.
Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhyi called the Ukrainian side's memorandum option on a ceasefire, prisoner exchange, and the return of Ukrainian children «quite feasible». At the same time, the Russian side did not hand over a memorandum to Ukraine before the meeting. «Unfortunately, we did not receive their document, their vision from the Russian side before the meeting», Tykhyi reported.