Russia has since said it will not engage in talks as long as Ukrainian forces remain in Kursk Oblast."Any outcome must be in Russia's favor, I say directly, without any embarrassment, and must be based on the realities on the battlefield. And without any doubt, we are not going to make any concessions here; there will be no swaps," Putin said.At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine and Russia held talks in Istanbul in March 2022, but the negotiations were eventually abandoned after Ukrainian retook the north of the country and mass war crimes were discovered in the liberated areas.In comments to Ukraine's Peace Summit in June this year, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Istanbul talks failed because of the Russian side's "ultimatums.