Russia and Ukraine on Monday swapped plans for ending their three-year war during talks in Istanbul aiming to find a way out of Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any deal must not “reward” Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but said Kyiv was willing to take the “necessary steps for peace”.

Urged on by US President Donald Trump, Moscow and Kyiv have opened direct negotiations for the first time since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion, but have yet to make progress towards an agreement.

Monday’s talks come a day after Ukraine carried out one of its most brazen and successful attacks ever on Russian soil — using drones to hit dozens of strategic bombers parked at airbases thousands of kilometres behind the front line.

A first round of meetings in Istanbul last month yielded a large-scale prisoner exchange but no pause in the fighting, which has raged since Russia invaded in February 2022.

On Monday, the delegations “exchanged documents through the Turkish side, and we are preparing a new release of prisoners of the war,” Zelensky said at a press conference in Vilnius just after the talks in Istanbul concluded.

“The key to lasting peace is clear, the aggressor must not receive any reward for war. Putin must get nothing that would justify his aggression,” he added.

Opening the talks at the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul — an Ottoman imperial house on the banks of the Bosphorus that is now a luxury five-star hotel — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the “eyes of the entire world” were watching.

Zelensky had said Kyiv was “ready to take the necessary steps for peace”, though the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating positions have long appeared irreconcilable.

‘Immediate ceasefire’

“If they are ready to move forward, not just repeat the same previous ultimatums, then there may be good and big news today,” a source in the Ukrainian delegation said ahead of the talks.

Ukraine wants a “full and unconditional ceasefire” to allow space to then discuss a long-term settlement. Russia has repeatedly rejected those calls.

Moscow says it wants to address the “root causes” of the conflict — language typically used to refer to a mix of sweeping demands including limiting Ukraine’s military, banning the country from joining Nato and massive territorial concessions.

Kyiv and the West say those concerns are baseless and that Russia’s assault is nothing but an imperialist land grab.

Tens of thousands have been killed since Russia invaded, with swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed and millions forced to flee their homes, in Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.

‘No home’

In the frontline town of Dobropillya in eastern Ukraine, 53-year-old Volodymyr told AFP that he believes the talks in Istanbul would amount to very little.

“We thought that everything would stop. And now there is nothing to wait for. We have no home, nothing. We were almost killed by drones,” he said.

In Kramatorsk, a garrison city near the front with trenches and rolls of barbed wire on its outskirts, a Ukrainian serviceman also said the talks in Turkiye would not likely bring out about any results.

“I have no faith in them. But it would be great if they could agree to stop, to have some kind of respite, so that we could take our guys, those who died, and so that guys would just stop dying,” he told AFP, sipping a coffee.

After months of setbacks for Kyiv’s military, Ukraine said it had carried out an audacious attack on Sunday, damaging some 40 strategic Russian bombers worth $7 billion in a major special operation.

Kyiv’s security service said the plan — 18 months in the making — had involved smuggling drones into Russia, then launching them from near the airbases, thousands of kilometres away from the front lines.

On the ground, Russia’s territorial advance gained pace in May, according to AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Ahead of the talks, Russian officials have called for Ukraine to be cut off from Western military support and cede territory still controlled by its army. Kyiv has previously accepted it may only be able to get territory taken by Russia through diplomacy, not fighting.

Ukraine also wants concrete Western-backed security guarantees — like Nato protections or troops on the ground — that have been ruled out by Russia.