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Vladimir Putin has rejected Ukraine’s calls for an immediate ceasefire and a top-level summit to end his three-year full-scale invasion of the country, raising the prospect that the war will grind on with no end in sight.
In a televised cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the Russian president accused Ukraine of “organising terrorist attacks” after a daring series of strikes behind enemy lines, and dismissed his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s terms for peace.
“How can we have meetings like this under these conditions? What is there to talk about? Who has negotiations with . . . terrorists?” Putin said.
Putin’s bellicose rhetoric — combined with an uptick in attacks and US President Donald Trump’s flagging interest in brokering an end to the war — indicated Russia was still intent on fighting unless its demands for Ukraine to capitulate are met.
Zelenskyy rejected Russia’s terms for peace a few hours earlier, saying its demands were an “ultimatum” that would be tantamount to Ukraine’s surrender.
The duelling statements appeared to leave low-level peace talks brokered by Turkey and the US, the first since the war’s early weeks in 2022, in tatters after representatives of Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul for a second time on Monday.
The two sides have so far found little common ground beyond agreeing to hold prisoner exchanges, while the fighting has only intensified since the first round of talks in May.
Moscow and Kyiv exchanged documents laying out their terms for a peace agreement on Monday, making it clear that they remain as far apart as at any point during the war.
Moscow’s memorandum sets out tough conditions, including demands for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from several major cities and territories, a ban on Kyiv joining military alliances and the lifting of all sanctions against Russia.
“This cannot be called a memorandum,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. “It is an ultimatum that the Russian side is trying to impose on us.”
He added: “We’re ready for prisoner exchanges, but I consider it pointless to continue diplomatic meetings in Istanbul that do not resolve anything.”
Putin, meanwhile, blamed Ukraine for a series of railway bombings that he said were “absolutely aimed at derailing the negotiating process” and accused Kyiv of “deliberately targeting civilians”.
The Russian president was speaking for the first time after Ukraine inflicted some of the war’s worst damage on his military infrastructure over the weekend.
Ukrainian drones that had been hidden in trucks during an 18-month operation hit airfields deep inside Russia on Sunday, dealing potentially significant damage to Moscow’s strategic bomber capabilities.
Putin did not address the strikes on the airfields but accused Ukraine of carrying out a series of railway bombings that same day in which at least seven passengers were killed and a further 73 injured.
Ukraine has celebrated the strikes on the airfields, as well as a separate bombing of Russia’s bridge to the occupied Crimean peninsula that took place on Tuesday, but has not claimed responsibility for the railway bombings.
Putin said Ukraine had resorted to “terrorist attacks” because Russia maintained the upper hand on the battlefield.
“Why should we encourage them by giving them a breather on the battlefield that they’ll use to prop up their regime with western weapons, continue forced mobilisation, and plot more terrorist attacks?” he said.
Putin’s comments made it clear Russia had no intention of declaring an immediate ceasefire or holding a summit with Zelenskyy, two of Ukraine’s main demands at the talks on Monday.
Reading from Russia’s document in a briefing with reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday, Zelenskyy dismissed demands he described as near-identical to those made by Moscow in the early stages of the war in 2022.
He said the document had been prepared “by low-level officials” and called on the US to hit Russia with new sanctions if it rejected Ukraine’s offer of a summit and ceasefire.
“If there is no understanding about the desire to de-escalate or about a clear vision to end the conflict, then the ceasefire will be immediately and unilaterally broken by the Russian side,” he said.
Ukraine and Russia plan to carry out what Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Moscow’s delegation in Istanbul, said would be the largest prisoner exchange during the war this weekend, involving up to 1,200 people from each side.
A parallel exchange of 6,000 soldiers’ remains is also under way, though Medinsky has refused to acknowledge that Russia’s casualty numbers are as high as Ukraine’s and told Putin that Kyiv “probably [has] much, much fewer” to hand over.
