Italian
They looked each other in the eyes — ten meters apart and with all the history in between — and in the end, they each walked away with their own prisoners, but not with peace. The second round of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul ended with a partial result: an exchange of 1,000 prisoners on each side, maybe another 200 at a later time, and the (limited) return of some of the hundreds of deported Ukrainian children. No ceasefire. No real truce. Just a table still set for the next round.
ISTANBUL. In the sumptuous Çırağan Palace, former Ottoman residence now a five-star hotel, delegates sat down wearing outfits that told two different wars: the Russians in dark suits, as if it were a business negotiation; the Ukrainians in uniforms, as if every word was an extension of the front line. Not more than two hours, then the frost started flowing again on the Bosphorus.
It is easy to greet the prisoner exchange as a success: and in part it is, especially for the families waiting for a familiar face at the door. But the real stakes — the ceasefire — remain distant. Kiev has asked for a month of silence on arms; Moscow responded with a document that, according to leaks, asks in exchange for the Ukrainian withdrawal from four occupied regions. More than a proposal, a déjà vu.
And then there is the issue of children. Zelenskyy presented a list of nearly 400 minors abducted and deported to Russia. In response, the Russian negotiators have agreed to discuss… ten. It’s hard to find an adjective that doesn’t slip into sarcasm: ten out of 400. How do you choose ten drops to return to a sea emptied by force?
Meanwhile, the war on the field does not wait for diplomacy. While delegates were shaking hands without reaching agreements, Ukraine was carrying out the “Operation Spiderweb,” a coordinated drone attack on Russian air bases, which according to Kiev sources would have destroyed 41 aircraft and caused damages amounting to 7 billion dollars. It is a war entering the era of algorithms and invisible drones, where every day a new technology is born and another piece of normality dies.
What remains, for now, is a mosaic of partial gestures. Prisoners on their way home. Children still far away. Generals exchanging human remains under local truces of “two or three days.” And leaders — Zelenskyy, Putin, Erdogan, perhaps even Trump — observing each other from a distance like pieces on a chessboard that knows no stalemate.
The table of peace, in the end, is still there. But like in certain royal banquets, the menu remains the same: cooled hostilities, lukewarm promises, and peace still out of reach.
