00:00Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says he's dissatisfied with the outcome of the latest two days of talks with Russia and
00:07the US.
00:07Washington, on the other hand, reporting what it called meaningful progress.
00:11No breakthrough, though, as officials from both Moscow and Kiev said the discussions were difficult.
00:16Well, let's have the reaction then from Kiev.
00:18We're going to talk to our correspondent who joins us now on the programme, Gulliver-Crag.
00:22Gulliver, cynics perhaps would say not surprisingly no breakthrough here.
00:26I mean, what's the reaction, would you say, been there?
00:31I'm not sure if it's even appropriate to talk about a reaction, because everybody in Ukraine, at least everybody who
00:37was commenting on the radio,
00:38pundits, people writing in the media, was convinced before these talks started that nothing would come out of them.
00:45The main reason that they cite for this, apart from the broader context, being the fact that Vladimir Putin had
00:51decided to reappoint Vladimir Medinikov to head his delegation for Russia.
00:56He was leading Russian delegations in talks months ago in Turkey, for example, where he just adopted a very antagonistic
01:05stance, bringing up things like the status of the Russian language or the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which Ukraine
01:11views as Russian interference in internal Ukrainian affairs and not something that should be on the table at all.
01:16And basically there to create a tense atmosphere, waste time and not with an intention to make a genuine progress.
01:25So as soon as he'd been named, the Ukrainians felt even more so than they already did, that the Russians
01:29weren't really serious about these talks.
01:31They, on the other hand, sent a very high level delegation because they think that it's important to be able
01:36to counter the Russians' arguments in the best way possible in front of the Americans in particular who are present
01:42and also European partners who are present.
01:45Perhaps the Americans aren't entirely lying when they say that meaningful progress has been made, because there is a technical
01:52aspect also to these talks in terms of how a ceasefire might eventually be monitored,
01:57how you're going to classify certain things. And on technical details, we're told that there is real progress being made.
02:03But those technical details mean nothing unless there is progress on the political front.
02:07It comes as well, doesn't it, amid ongoing reports that we've been receiving really over the last week of more
02:12success, though, for Ukraine on the battlefield itself.
02:17Of course, this is a huge glimmer of hope, if a glimmer can be huge for Ukraine.
02:23The idea that this Russian offensive is not going to go on forever, that the tide will at some point
02:29turn.
02:30And it has, to a limited degree, in Zaporizhia region in the south of Ukraine.
02:35I think it's important, although the Ukrainians are talking it up, and you can understand why, to stress that it
02:41is to quite a limited degree.
02:42They've retaken, so they say, 200 square kilometers of territory, which is the biggest Ukrainian counteroffensive since 2022.
02:50It is quite an important advance by the Ukrainians.
02:55But this is not territory where the Russians had really established themselves, established an occupation regime.
03:03It's territory that the Russians had gained, most of it in December of 2025, only freshly gained.
03:09And parts of it probably would more appropriately be called a gray zone than having been under Russian territory.
03:15So whether they took the Ukrainians back from Russia or reclaimed them from a gray zone and stabilized the front,
03:22it depends how you want to categorize it.
03:24And the reason also why the Russians have lost a little bit of ground in recent days is that they
03:32lost access to Starlink.
03:33Elon Musk has cut off their access to Starlink, which they needed.
03:37And so that is causing problems for them and may continue to do so.
03:39But also because of this Russian decision to block or partially block the Telegram messaging app and social media,
03:46which I think was done for political reasons, nothing to do with the war.
03:49And they perhaps didn't realize that it would also have an impact on the Russian soldiers on the front lines'
03:53ability to communicate with each other.
03:55But they're sure to find replacements for that very quickly.
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