Skabeyeva Has Revealed Medinsky's Role In Disrupting Istanbul Talks

• 17.05.2025, 9:34

There's an important nuance.

Russia has disrupted talks in Istanbul by blackmailing the Ukrainian side. The head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky demanded capitulation, threatening to seize new Ukrainian regions. This was confirmed by Russian State Duma deputy Evgeny Popov on air on Skabeyeva's propaganda talk show "60 Minutes," reports Dialog.UA.

"This phrase was heard inside. We can confirm it," Popov stated. We are talking about the phrase that Russia will occupy Sumy and Kharkiv regions if Kiev does not agree to give Donbass, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions to the Russian Federation.

Medinsky's phrase is not new at all. The "Being Or" blogger recalled that almost a year ago, in the summer of 2024, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin voiced a similar ultimatum, threatening that next time "the conditions will be different."

The problem for the Kremlin is that the threats do little to match the situation on the battlefield. Over the past year, the Russian Federation has failed to fully occupy any of the Ukrainian regions it has written into its constitution. The losses of the Russian Armed Forces are too high, and advances on the front are minimal.

"Russia is still far from full control over four regions, not to mention Kherson and Zaporizhzhya - huge cities, plus, Kherson would require forcing the Dnieper River, and there are no bridges there for a long time," the blogger noted.

The Kremlin essentially agreed to new Istanbul talks under pressure from US President Donald Trump. However, the Russians do not actually want to wind down the war, as demonstrated by today's Istanbul talks. The Russian delegation turned the peace process into a farce by making inadequate demands of Ukraine.