The lead Ukrainian negotiator, David Arakhamia, pointed to a bottle of sanitizing gel on the table, covered by a crisp white cloth, as Russian and Ukrainian peace delegations gathered in Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace.
“That’s an antiseptic,” Arakhamia told his
Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin’s adviser Vladimir Medinsky.
“Ah, I thought it’s vodka,” Medinsky joked.
Early in Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the two sides sat down to negotiate. But a few days later, the discovery of Russian atrocities in Bucha changed everything, Yaroslav Trofimov writes.
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