After Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian air bases, the two sides talked for less than an hour in Istanbul and a halt to the fighting seems out of reach for now.

Delegations from the warring sides met for barely an hour and agreed to exchange more prisoners of war - focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded - and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers.

Russian and Ukrainian delegates met in Istanbul on Monday for their second set of direct peace talks, a day after Kyiv launched a shock drone attack on Russia’s nuclear-capable bombers, in an operation that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was a year and a half in the making.