Istanbul, Turkey
CNN
—
Russia and Ukraine’s first direct talks in three years began Friday with hopes as dim as the gray Istanbul skies.
And while the weather brightened as the talks went on, the prospects for peace did not.
In the end a large prisoner swap (one of many in this war) and two discussion topics for future talks – a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, and the contours of a ceasefire – were the only deliverables, as the press pack at Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace thinned out and the sun sank over the Bosphorus.
The issue of a ceasefire is where the intractable…
