Russia ready to resume talks with Ukraine

2025-11-12 18:40:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Russia said on Wednesday that its forces are continuing to make advances around Pokrovsk, in Moscow's stepped-up efforts to penetrate the devastated Ukrainian city, which local officials say is in dire straits.

Russia's Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its troops had driven Ukrainian forces from Sukhyi Yar, located just south of Pokrovsk - a key area for the Kremlin's strategy to find a foothold to advance north towards the two largest cities still controlled by Ukraine in the Donetsk region - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Pokrovsku, a town of about 7,000 residents - down from over 60,000 before the war - contains important road and rail junctions and has been at risk of being surrounded by Russian forces for almost all of this year.

The reports of progress, which have not been independently verified, come as the Kremlin said Britain had attempted to open a secret communication channel to restart dialogue - as first reported by the Financial Times - to end the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.

"There were indeed contacts," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that the talks failed because "there was no intention or desire to listen to our position."

"Since it was not possible to exchange views, mutual dialogue did not take place," he said, without providing details on when the communication took place.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian state news agency TASS quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying that Russia is ready to resume peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul.

The sides last met in Istanbul in July for the third round of direct peace talks, but failed to make any progress – other than an agreement on a prisoner exchange – to end the war that began after Russia's full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

"The Russian team is ready for this, the ball is in Ukraine's court ," Alexei Polishchuk, head of the Second CIS Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, told TASS.

Moscow has previously said that President Vladimir Putin would be willing to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Russian capital, a condition that Kiev has not accepted.

After the peace process stalled, the United States last month imposed sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies after US President Donald Trump expressed disappointment with Putin's refusal to end his invasion of Ukraine./ REL