The Nepal Weekly 
June 3, 2025
Russia and Ukraine are set to hold a second round of meeting in Istanbul Monday. The meeting is to start at 13:00 local time in the Ciragan Palace.
The new meeting was announced on May 28 by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“The Russian side, as agreed, promptly developed a corresponding memorandum, which sets out our position on all aspects of reliably overcoming the root causes of the crisis. Our delegation headed by Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky is ready to present this memorandum to the Ukrainian delegation and provide the necessary clarifications during the second round of resumed direct talks in Istanbul next Monday, June 2,” he pointed out.
During the first meeting the countries agreed to present to each other a vision of a possible future ceasefire. This agreement was finalized after a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump. It was announced that Russia is ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum “on a possible future peace treaty defining a number of positions.” The exchange of memoranda is one of the main expectations from the second meeting.
Medinsky said on May 28 that he had called the head of the Ukrainian negotiating group, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, and suggested the exact date and place of the meeting for the exchange of memoranda.
“In the same place, immediately on the spot, we are ready to begin a meaningful substantive discussion of each of the points of the package agreement on a future ceasefire,” he said.
According to Umerov Kiev does not object to a meeting with Russia, but is waiting for the memorandum from Russia before it takes place. He informed that Kiev had sent Moscow a document with its position on the ceasefire. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Kiev’s demand unconstructive and urged it to wait for the second round of negotiations.
Against the background of resistance to peace
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Kiev regime carried out several terrorist attacks on Sunday using FPV drones against airfields in five regions of Russia.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Ukraine reacted with gloating and “joy from hell” to the blowing up of bridges in the Kursk and Bryansk Regions.
Composition of delegations
Zakharova said the lineup of the Russian delegation in Istanbul will remain unchanged. In the first round, apart from Medinsky, the negotiating group included Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Igor Kostyukov, and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin.
Vladimir Zelensky changed the composition of the negotiators — Alexey Malovatsky, Head of the International and Operational Law Department of the Central Legal Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, will not go to Istanbul this time.
The delegation will include three new members: Yury Kovbasa, an envoy of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) human rights ombudsperson in the system of defense and security sector bodies, Yevgeny Ostryansky, a Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and Andrey Fomin, chief of the international law department and deputy chief of the international and operational law directorate of the Ukrainian General Staff’s Central Legal Directorate.
