Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Vladimir Putin sent a delegation to Istanbul for peace talks with Ukraine. (Reuters/Sputnik: Alexander Kazakov)
After three years of war, the second round of peace talks since very early in Russia's invasion of Ukraine was over within one hour.
At a negotiating table in Istanbul overnight, representatives of Kyiv and Moscow agreed to exchange some of their wounded and to send some of the dead home, but they made little progress on ending the war.
As Russian officials handed over a memorandum outlining Vladimir Putin's terms, Ukraine said it needed a week to consider the document.
Much of what Russian state-controlled media is reporting as being in there has been rejected as tantamount to surrender by Ukraine before.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov (second from left) and the delegation met with Russian officials in Istanbul. (Reuters: Murad Sezer )
Their host, Türkiye's president, said the fact the meeting happened at all was a "success", given a day earlier Ukraine unleashed a covert drone attack on Russian airfields and destroyed some of its prized strategic bomber fleet.
The scale of the damage is difficult to verify, but the military losses are also only half the point.
Because while Ukraine is now saying it destroyed 13 Russian bombers and damaged many others, it is also talking about the wider symbolic objectives of what it's called Operation Spider's Web.
Overnight Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the mission would help restore international partners' confidence that Kyiv could continue to defend itself.
"Ukraine says that we are not going to surrender and are not going to give in to any ultimatums," he said in a briefing.
"But we do not want to fight, we do not want to demonstrate our strength — we demonstrate it because the enemy does not want to stop."
The drone attack has been called "the most audacious attack of the war" and "a military and strategic game changer" because now Putin knows just how far his enemy can reach and the world knows Ukraine is still finding new ways to fight him.
Ukraine plays its cards
Earlier this year, as the United States appointed itself as the chief broker of a possible peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, Zelenskyy again asked for security guarantees for his country.
He knows Putin cannot be trusted to never invade again, to not take more territory — to suddenly give up on his expansionist dreams.
And so Zelenskyy has always insisted that any discussion about real and lasting peace must come with a way to deter Putin.
Earlier this year, the US appeared to stop listening to the Ukrainian president.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the work of Ukraine's Security Service, led by Vasyl Maliuk (right). (Reuters: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service)
But while Donald Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator, brought Putin in from the cold, then called him crazy and begged him to stop, the Ukrainian president and his security service were working away on the final stages of an elaborate mission.
One that would, according to Ukraine, smuggle more than 100 drones over the Russian border to deliver Putin an embarrassing blow.
And that would also remind any third-party peace broker about the position from which negotiations should begin — that the war is not yet lost.
"It was, of course, very bold. It was unexpected. The timing was perfect — just 24 hours before the major negotiations in Türkiye," Russia expert and visiting fellow to Australian National University Leonid Petrov said.
"We don't know how many more surprises Ukrainians have in their sleeve, and what will be next, but obviously it's a good negotiating tactic."
Speaking to the ABC, Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine's Minister of Strategic Industries, said: "Ukraine has in the recent past been accused of not having cards.
"So we've shown that we can come to the table from the position of force and that it's way too early to give up on Ukraine's capacity to protect itself and to inflict damage on the enemy," he said.
An advisor to Ukraine's defence minister says it is "way too early to give up on Ukraine".
It's a stunning turn of events and, after months of excruciating patience and perseverance with the White House, it puts Zelenskyy in an improved position.
Because, as he was asking for help to deter Putin and diminish Russia's ability to attack his country, the Ukrainian president had a plan to go and get a little of that for himself.
Speaking on Monday, local time, Zelenskyy said: "Russia must feel what its losses mean.
"That is what will push it toward diplomacy."
Russia's vulnerabilities
Russia now controls about 20 per cent of Ukraine and, so far in negotiations, Putin has been clear that he wants to keep much of that territory.
The hope that Operation Spider's Web will notably shift Putin in peace talks is perhaps far-fetched, but it does expose some of his pre-existing vulnerabilities and that might be useful.
The reaction to the drone attack inside Russia has been expectedly quiet.
Russian state-controlled television mentioned the attack and military bloggers questioned Ukraine's assessment of the damage, but they also lamented the fact the bombers were left in such a vulnerable position.
In February 2022, when Putin announced to the world he was attacking his sovereign neighbour, he said the objective was to "demilitarise" Ukraine.
"But as a result of this three-and-a-half years of aggression, now Russia is becoming demilitarised," Petrov said.
Ukraine said it hit 41 aircraft. That claim could not be independently verified, but the Institute for the Study of War noted: "Russia will likely struggle to replace the aircraft that Ukrainian forces damaged and destroyed."
Russian patriots believe the so-called "nuclear triad" — the ability to launch a nuclear attack via air, land and sea — protects their nation.
But its enemy across its western border, the one it believed would fall within days, now claims to have diminished the air capacity — and that's after destroying a few naval ships too.
The claims made by Ukraine about exactly how they pulled off the attack suggested some other vulnerabilities in Putin's Russia.
Because while Zelenskyy talks about a united Ukraine, Russia is very different.
"Russia looks like it's monolithic and it's very supportive of Putin. But it just looks like it,"Petrov said.
Petrov said it was possible "the network of pro-Ukrainian sympathisers or agents is so significant in Russia that it became a soft target".
In theory, Russia's border is impenetrable.
But in practice, it has some of the longest land borders in the world and, in some places, is "very porous", according to Petrov.
"Ukrainians speak Russian like natives so that makes them better equipped for, say, either parading as either Russian police, border guards, or traders. If there's a network of spies or saboteurs and special forces, they can easily disguise themselves," he said.
Zelenskyy said Operation Spider's Web was 18 months in the making, and by the time the drones lifted out of the semitrailers and took off towards the tarmac parking lots of Putin's air force, anyone who "assisted" the mission had been withdrawn.
Video from a bystander shows smoke billowing near the Russian air bases in Novomaltinsk and Murmansk.
"Battered, beleaguered, tired and outnumbered, Ukrainians have, at minimal cost, in complete secrecy and over vast distances, destroyed or damaged dozens, perhaps more, of Russia's strategic bombers," said Edward Lucas, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.
Russia may retaliate further and Putin may walk away from negotiations.
But now he knows Ukraine can reach more than 7,000 kilometres beyond its border and into his country and attack some of his precious war machines.
That puts Zelenskyy in a position he has not found himself in since the war began.
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