Briefly

TURKIYE

Russia, Ukraine hold 3rd round of talks

Russian negotiators flew to Turkiye to hold peace talks with Ukraine on Wednesday, the Kremlin said, before what will be the first direct discussions between the two sides in more than seven weeks. "No one expects an easy road. It will be a very difficult conversation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "The projects (of the two sides) are diametrically opposed." A Ukrainian diplomatic source told Reuters that a Ukrainian delegation had arrived in Ankara. A Turkish Foreign Ministry official said the meeting was scheduled to begin at around 7 pm in Istanbul. Previous negotiations in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2 led to the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war and the remains of dead soldiers. However, those meetings lasted less than three hours in total and made no breakthrough toward a ceasefire or a settlement to end the conflict. On Wednesday, Russia said its forces had captured the settlement of Varachyne in Ukraine's Sumy region.