RUSSIA: Putin Updated On Latest Ukraine Talks

Reuters reporting comments from Vladimir Medinsky, aide to President Vladimir Putin and lead negotiator in face-to-face talks with Ukraine. Medinsky, speaking to the president, says that Ukraine is seeking a 30-60 day unconditional ceasefire. Says that the Russian side relayed to Ukraine's negotiators the Kremlin position, adding that a heads of state meeting is possible. Medinsky says that an exchange of ~1,200 live PoWs from each side could take place. Says "the ball is [in Ukraine's court] on other issues."

• Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claims that "the process of direct talks is working, both rounds produced concrete results". Lavrov: "I believe it's always better to have the channel of communication...there is a real move forward [in talks]." Lavrov claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy [not present at the talks] rejected Russia's proposal of a 2/3 day pause to recover remains of killed servicemen from the battlefield.
• The maximalist Russian demands laid out in the much-delayed memorandum indicate little prospect of a swift deal. Ukraine ceding all of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson ('option one'), or ending new mobilisation, enacting demobilisation, halting the uptake of Western arms, halting redeployment of forces, among other demands ('option two' or the 'package deal'), will be seen as concessions far to extreme by Kyiv and its European allies.
• Ukraine's memorandum, which calls for no commitment to neutrality, no limits on the size of its armed forces, and the right to station foreign troops on its soil, is equally as unlikely to be acceptable to Moscow.