Ukraine said it would send a high-level negotiating team to Turkey peace talks with Russia, even as Moscow wrote off the talks before they had started.

Negotiators for the warring sides in Istanbul appeared to make little progress on ceasefire terms or a possible summit between their presidents – with their meeting ending after less than an hour.

Hundreds of people gathered in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to lodge their protest with the Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration for passing a controversial bill tightening restrictions on its anti-corruption agencies, presenting the war-hit nation with its biggest domestic turmoil since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Kyiv and Moscow will hold a new round of peace talks — the first in seven weeks — on Wednesday in Turkey, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday said Kyiv has proposed renewed peace talks with Moscow next week, urging direct negotiations with President Vladimir Putin. The call comes as Russian strikes killed at least three people in Ukraine,