Ukrainian officials on May 28 said Russia should put forth its peace plan for ending the war in Ukraine immediately instead of waiting for a new round of talks next week in Istanbul.
Russia said it wants the talks with Ukraine to take place on June 2 and will use the meeting to present a "memorandum" outlining its terms for a peace settlement.
"Our delegation, led by Vladimir Medinsky, is ready to present a memorandum to the Ukrainian delegation and provide the necessary explanations during a second round of direct talks in Istanbul on Monday, June 2," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a statement.
Lavrov said the memorandum will set out Russia's views "on all aspects of reliably overcoming the root causes of the crisis."
Medinsky, a Russian political scientist and former culture minister, led Russia's negotiating team on May 16 during the first round of direct talks in the more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Lavrov and welcomed a prisoner exchange over the weekend, spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
"The Secretary reiterated President Trump’s calls for constructive, good faith dialogue with Ukraine as the only path to ending this war," Bruce said.
What Do Russia And Ukraine Expect?
Putin's demands for ending the war include a written pledge from Western leaders that NATO will not expand to former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia and the lifting of some sanctions on Russia, according to Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations quoted by Reuters.
The Kremlin has previously demanded Ukraine cede territory that Russia already controls -- a proposition Ukraine has called unacceptable.
The round of talks on May 16 yielded no breakthrough but was followed by a large prisoner exchange, and the two sides agreed to work on respective peace proposals.
Ukraine has not yet officially agreed to Russia's proposed meeting on June 2.
Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who negotiated for Kyiv at the Istanbul talks, said Kyiv had already submitted its memorandum on a potential settlement to the Russian delegation, adding that Ukraine confirms its readiness for a complete and unconditional cease-fire and further diplomatic work.
He also called on Russia to produce its plan immediately rather than waiting until next week.
"We are not opposed to further meetings with the Russians and are awaiting their memorandum," Umerov said. "The Russian side has at least four more days before their departure to provide us with their document for review. Diplomacy must be substantive, and the next meeting must yield results."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha also said Russia should present its memorandum immediately.
"Why wait for Monday? If the Russians have finally developed their memorandum after 10 days of deliberation and attacks, they can hand it over to us immediately," he said.
In a May 29 post on X, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhiy criticized Russia for withholding its "memorandum" ahead of upcoming talks, suggesting it likely contains unrealistic ultimatums and signals an attempt to stall the peace process.
"If not, they must pass the document immediately, as [Ukrainian] Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said, and stop playing these games, which only show that they probably want the next meeting to be empty," Tykhiy wrote.
Trump Gives Putin 'About Two Weeks' To Show Motives
Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year conflict have recently accelerated, but Moscow has repeatedly rejected calls for an unconditional 30-day cease-fire and shown no signs of scaling back its demands or letting up on its aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities.
US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a peace deal, has become increasingly frustrated with Moscow's apparent stalling and warned on May 28 he would determine within "about two weeks" whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about ending the fighting.
"We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not, and if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently. But it will take about a week and a half, two weeks,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Trump said his lead envoy, Steve Witkoff, who has traveled three times to Moscow to try and nail down a deal, is "doing a phenomenal job."
He said Witkoff is "dealing with [Putin] very strongly right now," adding that the Russian side seems "to want to do something, but until the document is signed" he could not say definitively that Putin wants to end the war.
"I can say this: I'm very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiation. I'm very disappointed by that. Very, very disappointed," he said.
He again rebuffed calls to impose more sanctions on Moscow, saying that if he believed he was close to getting a deal, he would not want to "screw it up by doing that."
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Germany understands Trump's impatience because he has "invested a lot of political capital to bring Putin to the negotiation table" and Putin has not yet come around. But Wadephul said in an interview on CNN that he hopes that there will be a chance in Istanbul next week "but please without any preconditions."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on May 28 accused Russia of dragging out the peace process and of not wanting to halt its offensive.
"They will constantly look for reasons not to end the war," he said at a press conference in Berlin alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Zelenskyy also claimed that Russia is "amassing" more than 50,000 troops on the frontline around the northeastern Sumy border region, where Moscow's army has captured a number of settlements as it seeks to establish what Putin has called a "buffer zone" inside Ukrainian territory.
