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.

Russia took weeks to present Ukraine with a “memorandum” setting out its conditions for a ceasefire, as well as key guidelines for a comprehensive treaty to end the more than 3-year-old war. To practically no one’s surprise,