RUSSIA and Ukraine have no direct peace talks scheduled, the Kremlin said on Thursday, nearly a week after their first face-to-face session since shortly after Moscow’s invasion in 2022.

This came days after US President Donald Trump said that ceasefire talks would begin “immediately.”

“There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “They are yet to be agreed upon.”

During two hours of talks in Istanbul on May 16, Kiev and Moscow agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each. Apart from that, the meeting delivered no significant breakthrough.

The prisoner swap reportedly began yesterday.

Mr Peskov disputed a report on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal that President Trump told European leaders after his phone call with Mr Putin on Monday that the Russian leader wasn’t interested in talks because he thinks that Moscow is winning.

“We know what Mr Trump told Mr Putin, we don’t know what Mr Trump told the Europeans. We know President Trump’s official statement,” Mr Peskov said. “What we know contrasts with what was written in the article you mentioned.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defence Ministry said that it shot down 105 Ukrainian drones yesterday, including 35 over the Moscow region. It was the second straight night that Kiev’s forces have targeted the Russian capital.