Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday cast doubt on the value of continuing peace talks with Ukraine, accusing Kyiv's leadership of orchestrating deadly bridge attacks that killed seven and injured 115 civilians. Speaking in a televised meeting with senior officials, Putin said, "The current Kyiv regime does not need peace at all... What is there to talk about? How can we negotiate with those who rely on terror?"
Russian investigators allege that Ukrainian forces detonated explosives on a highway bridge in Bryansk just as a passenger train carrying 388 people passed beneath. Another blast targeted a bridge in Kursk. Ukraine has not commented on the incidents.
Putin blamed Ukraine's leadership for the attacks and claimed they were aimed deliberately at civilians. The Kyiv government “was degenerating into a terrorist organisation, and its sponsors are becoming accomplices of terrorists," he stated.
The accusations landed days before a fresh round of peace negotiations in Istanbul, where both parties outlined starkly divergent terms. Russia, after weeks of internal deliberations, delivered a memorandum outlining its terms for both a 30-day ceasefire and a broader peace treaty. Moscow's proposed truce options include either a withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the four regions Russia claims to have annexed-Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia-or, under a so-called "package" deal, an immediate halt to Ukraine's mobilization and a freeze on Western arms deliveries.
The Russian memorandum further calls for Ukraine to demobilize its forces, hold elections, and lift martial law as prerequisites to any peace agreement. It also demands "international legal recognition" of Moscow's annexation of Crimea and the four other regions, as well as a formal declaration of Ukrainian neutrality, renunciation of NATO ambitions, and limitations on its military strength.
In addition, the document proposes that Ukraine grant Russian official language status, ban nationalist groups, and end what Moscow describes as "glorification and propaganda of Nazism." Kyiv and its Western allies reject those characterizations as false and politically motivated.
Ukraine's counterproposal, submitted before the talks and shared with allies, reiterated the call for an "unconditional 30-day ceasefire" as a basis for negotiation. Kyiv insists on maintaining sovereignty over all occupied territories and rejects any limitations on its military posture or foreign alliances.
The Ukrainian memorandum emphasized the need for international security guarantees, a full return of deported children, and a comprehensive prisoner exchange. It also left open the possibility of gradually lifting sanctions against Russia if Moscow complies with the agreement.
