(23 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Istanbul, Turkey – 23 July 2025
1. Wide of Ukrainian delegation at podium
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Rustem Umerov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine:
"Ukraine keeps insisting on a full and unconditional ceasefire as the necessary basis for effective diplomacy. We are ready for a ceasefire now and to start substantive peace negotiations. And it is up to the other sides to accept this basic step towards peace."
3. Mid of delegation at podium
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Rustem Umerov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine:
"Regarding the exchanges of prisoners of war, we expect further progress. We continue to insist on the release of civilians, including children. We are grateful to our partners who support efforts for peace , especially to the Republic of Turkey. For its active role in facilitating a platform for dialogue and peace. Real steps are possible, and the other sides must demonstrate a constructive and realistic approach. We will keep working to achieve this."
5. Wide of delegation at podium
STORYLINE:
Rustem Umerov, the head of the Ukrainian delegation at peace negotiations in Istanbul, stressed on Wednesday that Kyiv’s top priorities were a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents and a “real ceasefire” ending all strikes on civilian infrastructure.
"This can be a crucial first step towards lasting peace," he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed his offer to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, but hopes of progress were low as delegations held another round of talks.
Russian forces, meanwhile, pounded four Ukrainian cities in night-time attacks that officials said killed a child.
Putin has spurned Zelenskyy’s previous offers of a face-to-face meeting to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. But the Ukrainian leader insisted that lower-level delegations like the ones at talks in Istanbul on Wednesday don’t have the political heft to stop the fighting.
The sides remain far apart on how to end the war begun by Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
Ukrainian and Western officials have accused the Kremlin of stalling in talks in order for its bigger army to capture more Ukrainian land. Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukraine.
The previous two rounds of talks in May and June were also held in Istanbul and led to a series of exchanges of prisoners of war and the bodies of fallen soldiers, but produced no other agreements.
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