President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes that “certain steps and operations on Russian territory” have prompted the Russians to begin discussing a meeting at leader level.

Source: Zelenskyy during a meeting with journalists on 24 July to which Ukrainska Pravda was not invited, as cited by Ukrinform

Quote: “We need the war to end, and that begins, most likely, with a meeting between leaders. There is no other way with them. There needs to be an agenda for such a meeting – a meeting at leader level. […] We always raise this issue publicly. And now they have started talking about it in their conversations with us. This is already a move towards some kind of meeting format.”

Details: Zelenskyy believes that changes in the Russians’ attitude towards the idea of a leaders’ meeting have occurred due to certain steps and operations on Russian territory.

“Apart from the negotiation processes, dialogue and diplomacy, a lot of things have also taken place on their territory. You’ve seen this,” the president noted.

He also reiterated that among the main issues on which agreement was reached during the last round of talks in Istanbul were the exchange of 1,200 prisoners of war and the return of political prisoners and journalists.

Quote: “We agreed on the exchange of 1,200 prisoners of war. Secondly, we’ve been working towards this for a long time, and I think this is an important aspect. These are civilians – political prisoners and journalists. We have started working on the lists. Now this is the political prisoner and journalist category. And you know that we cannot exchange civilians; civilians are supposed to be released by them [by the Russians – ed.]. That’s why we are now looking for a format regarding the lists – both from our side and from theirs.”

Background:

On 23 July, a third round of peace talks between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations took place in Istanbul. The first round of talks was held in Istanbul on 16 May this year, and the second on 2 June.At a briefing following the talks, Oleksandr Bevz, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, said that the Ukrainian side had once again proposed holding a leaders’ meeting in August.

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