Ukraine rallied support from its Western allies yesterday after Kyiv and Moscow failed to agree to a ceasefire at their first direct talks in more than three years, with Russia presenting conditions that a Ukrainian source described as “non-starters”.

Under pressure from US President Donald Trump to end the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War Two, delegates from the warring countries met for the first time since March 2022, the month after Russia invaded its neighbour.

The talks in an Istanbul palace lasted less than two hours. Russia expressed satisfaction with the meeting and said it was ready to continue contacts. Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each soon in what would be the biggest such exchange yet.

But Kyiv, which wants the West to impose tighter sanctions on Moscow unless President Vladimir Putin accepts a proposal from Trump for a 30-day ceasefire, immediately began rallying its allies for tougher action.

As soon as the talks ended, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that he had spoken by phone with Trump and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland.

“Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance,” Zelenskyy said. He called for “tough sanctions” if Russia rejects a full and unconditional ceasefire.

Russia, which is slowly but steadily advancing on the battlefield and is worried that Ukraine will use such a pause to regroup and re-arm, has said it needs to nail down the terms of a ceasefire before signing up to one.

“We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail,” Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters after the meeting. “After such a vision has been presented, we believe it would be appropriate, as also agreed, to continue our negotiations.”

At the meeting convened by Turkey, the negotiating teams sat opposite one another at a U-shaped table, with the Russians dressed in suits while half of the Ukrainians wore military fatigues.

The atmosphere was calm, a Turkish official said. No concrete timetable or location was agreed for the next talks, the official said, with both sides needing to debrief their leaders first.

The Ukrainians spoke in their own language through an interpreter, a Ukrainian source said, although Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian and a European source said Russia rejected a Ukrainian request for US representatives to be in the room.

Two sources familiar with the talks said Medinsky said Russia was ready to keep fighting for as long as necessary, drawing a parallel with the wars of Tsar Peter the Great against Sweden, which lasted 21 years in the early 1700s.

“We do not want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two, three — as long as you want,” one of the sources quoted him as saying.